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Show Notes
Sara M. Saleh is a writer, a poet, human rights lawyer, organiser, and the daughter of Palestinian, Egyptian, and Lebanese migrants. She joins Mel to talk about two new books she's released this year: Songs for the Dead and the Living (out now through Affirm Press), and her new poetry collection The Flirtation of Girls / Ghazal el-Banat (UQP). They talk about Sara's creative process, her relationships with both herself and her characters, how place and memory are implicated in her writing, and how the role of the artist is to bear witness and to 'name the things that need to be named, and to articulate alternate visions and futurities'. Finally, she does a reading of her poem 'The Year that Changed Everything', based on the year 1948 which is also known as the year of the Nakba. Nakba means 'catastrophe' in Arabic; and it names the year that Palestinians were dispossesed from their homelands during the establishment of the State of Israel where 750,000 people were exiled, and many killed. For Palestinian people, this catastrophe has never ended and is ongoing today.
More from Literati Glitterati
Although the podcast format of Literati Glitterati has now wrapped, this show continues to be broadcast on Triple R. You can now listen to new episodes on Triple R’s FM On Demand service at rrr.org.au/explore/programs/literati-glitterati. Thanks for listening!
Julie Ostro discusses her new cookbook Good Cooking Everyday, and novelist Michelle De Kretser delves into her new book Theory and Practice.
The monthly Literati Glitterati Salon returns for its final instalment for 2024 to discuss autobiographical novel Family Lexicon by Natalia Ginzburg about life, language, and family in Italy from the 1920s to the 50s. Mel Fulton speaks to writer and editor Hilary McPhee, collection manager and multidisciplinary artist Marita Dyson, and writer Raeden Richardson on how Ginzburg uses words to create a family bonded by phrases and how the book explores the dysfunction and isolation of family, language, and identity with much humor and affection.
Alina Grabowski dials in to talk all about her latest book, Women and Children First, set in a fictional town in Massachusetts. It’s a burnt-out coastal town where the residents are confronted by the death of a young woman at a house party, and the novel is told through the voices of women in the community as they work through their grief and try to get to the bottom of what happened. Poet Andy Jackson joins Mel to talk about his collaborative project Raging Grace: Australian Writers Speak Out on Disability. Featuring work from over 20 disabled contributors, the anthology contains poems, essays and artworks which question and divulge the experience of being deemed troublesome. And there's still time to read this month's novel, Family Lexicon by Natalia Ginzburg, for next week's Literati Glitterati Salon.
Mel's first guest is Emily Maguire, discussing her recently-released book Rapture. In the second half of the show, Mel explores Australian Gospel: A Family Saga with author Lech Blain.