The Tribe

A path-breaking prize-winning novel, published to acclaim ten years ago, now presented in a new edition with an introduction by Dr Jumana Bayeh.

For the last three decades the representation of Arab-Australian Muslims has been coloured by media reports of sexual assault, drug-dealing, drive-by shootings and terrorist conspiracy. This has made it difficult to understand a community which plays an important role in contemporary Australian society. Here, in his first work of fiction, Michael Mohammed Ahmad offers a privileged introduction to the life and customs of ‘The Tribe’, members of a small Muslim sect who fled to Australia just before the civil war in Lebanon. His stories focus on the relationships between three generations of an extended family, the House of Adam, as seen by one of its youngest offspring, a child called Bani, at key moments in its development. Ahmad’s writing is aware of tradition, but its real power is in its simplicity and honesty, and the directness with which he conveys the emotional responses of his young narrator.

'Ahmad tackles [his] difficult subject matter with breathtaking honesty, gesturing towards a larger social canvas beyond the mind of a child that includes the struggle of migration, economic disadvantage, the difficulties of reconciling elements of the old and the new culture. Ahmad’s language is replete with lyricism, and a sense of wonder suffuses every page.' — Best Young Novelists Award citation