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Fiction

Bani’s story

Michael Mohammed Ahmad’s new novel
by Shannon Burns
August 2021, no. 434

The Other Half of You by Michael Mohammed Ahmad

Hachette Australia, $32.99 pb, 339 pp

ABR receives a commission on items purchased through this link. All ABR reviews are fully independent.

Michael Mohammed Ahmad (photograph by Anna Kucera)
Michael Mohammed Ahmad (photograph by Anna Kucera)

Bani Adam returns as the narrator–protagonist of Michael Mohammed Ahmad’s The Other Half of You, a sequel to his two previous books. The most recent one, The Lebs (2018), gave us the story of Bani’s teenage years at Punchbowl Boys’ High School: the trials of a Lebanese Muslim boy in a majority Lebanese Muslim community nestled inside the larger, diverse territories of Western Sydney, in post-‘War on Terror’ Australia. The Other Half of You is an account of Bani’s late teens and early twenties, and of an inner conflict between religious, cultural, and romantic pieties.

 


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The Other Half of You by Michael Mohammed Ahmad

Hachette Australia, $32.99 pb, 339 pp

ABR receives a commission on items purchased through this link. All ABR reviews are fully independent.


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