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The Lebs

Michael Mohammed Ahmad

3.60 · Rating details · 650 ratings · 93 reviews

A confronting new novel from award winning Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Novelist Michael Mohammed Ahmad.

'Bani Adam thinks he's better than us!' they say over and over until finally I shout back, 'Shut up, I have something to say!'

They all go quiet and wait for me to explain myself, redeem myself, pull my shirt out, rejoin the pack. I hold their anticipation for three s ...more

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Paperback, 272 pages

Published March 2018 by Hachette Australia (first published February 27th 2018)

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Jul 21, 2019 Marchpane rated it really liked it · review of another edition

‘Maybe Leb isn’t something you’re born with; maybe it’s something you earn while you’re in the gutter.’

The Lebs is a difficult book to review – it is tempting to fall back on words like ‘necessary’ and ‘important’ but that makes it sound like a chore to read, when it’s not. This is propulsive, energetic storytelling.

So much of it is specific to a certain time and place; a marginalised (and demonised) demographic; a particular moment of racial tension boiling over in Western Sydney in the ea ‘Maybe Leb isn’t something you’re born with; maybe it’s something you earn while you’re in the gutter.’

The Lebs is a difficult book to review – it is tempting to fall back on words like ‘necessary’ and ‘important’ but that makes it sound like a chore to read, when it’s not. This is propulsive, energetic storytelling.

So much of it is specific to a certain time and place; a marginalised (and demonised) demographic; a particular moment of racial tension boiling over in Western Sydney in the early 2000s. But at the book’s heart is a well-executed coming of age story. Bani Adam (literally ‘child of Adam’, in other words: humanity) is a bookish boy, learning who he is and learning to accept himself. This kind of story has been told before many times, in a multitude of ways, and The Lebs takes that classic form and applies to it a perspective not seen before in Australian literature – that of a Muslim Arab-Australian boy at the notorious Punchbowl Boys High School.

The prose is crisp and vigorous, and Bani’s first-person narration, perfectly pitched, never falters in its believability. There are also comedic moments, many of them involving Bani’s botched attempts to sound deep by quoting or paraphrasing his favourite authors (Nabokov, Marquez, Kahlil Gibran).

Some readers will no doubt be put off by the coarseness of the boys’ talk, the brutality of the violence that punctuates their lives and the way all of this is normalised. Boys all over Australia are swimming in the same toxic soup of misogyny, homophobia and aggression, and it is extra-concentrated at all-boys schools. At Punchbowl Boys these kids are also contending with the glare of the media spotlight, with the racial vilification drummed up against them by op-eds and shock jocks.

Many of the boys in The Lebs react by playing up to the stereotypes, but it’s a pose. Bani takes a different path, he’s not like the others, he thinks to himself. He’s an intellectual, a poet and a romantic, he pursues writing and art. But Bani comes to learn a cruel lesson that none of that matters to the prejudice of mainstream Australia.

As this is a fictionalised account of the author’s own experiences growing up, Ahmad doesn’t sugarcoat it or provide a hokey ‘triumph over adversity’ ending. The result is something powerful, unvarnished, truthful, real. ...more

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May 24, 2019 Collin rated it really liked it

You know things are less than ideal at a school when the new principal expels over half of the students when he is appointed. Not only this, he builds a nine foot fence topped with barbed wire and cameras around the perimeter, creating only one way in, and out. PunchBowl Boys High is situated in the western suburbs of Sydney. Is it a school or a prison? Are the walls meant to keep the students in or out? In school Bani, the protagonist, is a typical schoolboy on the surface, one of the better on You know things are less than ideal at a school when the new principal expels over half of the students when he is appointed. Not only this, he builds a nine foot fence topped with barbed wire and cameras around the perimeter, creating only one way in, and out. PunchBowl Boys High is situated in the western suburbs of Sydney. Is it a school or a prison? Are the walls meant to keep the students in or out? In school Bani, the protagonist, is a typical schoolboy on the surface, one of the better ones, however outside of school he is, as he refers to himself, a “Sand Nigger”. Constantly hassled by the police, hated and feared by the neighbourhood, looking just like the infamous gang rapist Bilal Skaf, who adorns the front page of the local newspaper every day. Bani is Lebanese or as the title of the novel suggests a “Leb”, and just like 41 of the 45 students in his class, a Muslim.
On the surface, this novel is about Bani. His life, his desires, his questions. He does not feel as if he fits in with his friends, a minority within a minority. He seems to hate his heritage and feels superior to his classmates. As you get deeper into the novel you realise that it is really about minority cultures, xenophobia and racism. Cultures that exist together and yet are radically different in religion and belief. This book was very confronting for me. Looking at Australia, through Bani’s eyes was jarring. The way that Bani and his friends saw “aussies”. Here in Australia we like to think that we live in a friendly, harmonious, multi-cultural society, and for most of us, we do. However, when you see the world through the eyes of one of the minorities, you start to see the problems that exist below the surface of the ideal. The pockets of racism, the cultural and religious clashes that almost seem inevitable. With this novel it is the Lebanese community that live in the western suburbs of Sydney, but it could be one of many. Often it is our xenophobia, our fear of these different cultures, these different religions, that are at the heart of the problem. I firmly believe in multi-culturalism and tolerance, and firmly believe that we can achieve a harmonious society. It is, however, as again this book has shown me, a problem that will not be solved quickly or easily. Tolerance, from all sides would be a good start. A book with a powerful message. 4 Stars.
...more

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Nov 02, 2019 Claire rated it really liked it

Shelves: read-harder-2019

The Lebs is a confronting, demanding, yet compulsively readable novel. It's a very real story of a marginalised community, which is focused on a tense, conflict riddled moment in Sydney in the early 2000s. Ahmad is both honest and authentic in the way he constructs this narrative, the culture of toxic masculinity that is presented is raw and unrelenting. But at its heart, The Lebs is a story about identity. In it, Ahmad considers in particular, how we are shaped by our cultural identity, what it ...more

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Jun 18, 2018 Ifdal E rated it it was amazing

This made me squirm in my chair, and laugh out loud. As a Leb from Punchbowl of the same generation, I was irritated by MMA's exposure of (and the harshness with which he dealt with) Leb vulnerabilities, traumas, and weaknesses (not to mention his erasure of leb women), yet exhilarated by the style with which he brings them all to life and the context in which he places them. He brilliantly recreates Punchbowl's tongue by fusing references to the Prophet Muhammed, Malcolm X, Khalil Gibran, 2pac, ...more

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Jul 23, 2019 Trudie rated it really liked it

Shelves: australia, australian-nz-book-prizes, read-harder-2019, miles-franklin-award

In this way my spirit is broken and reconstructed, elevated to a point so high that my efforts turn to weakness. Reading means I care too much. Pulling out an exercise book means I care too much. To stop walking means I care too much. There are no bullies at Punchbowl boys. The school captain, Jamal, screams out in assembly like it is Thug life " What kind of sad f*** is bothered to pick on some other sad f*** ? We are beyond this. We are the children of the desert.

Shortlisted for the 2019 Mi ...more

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Mar 16, 2018 James Whitmore rated it it was amazing

Shelves: australian, contemporary, 2018

I found this an immersive and thrilling reading experience. We meet Bani Adam at Punchbowl Boys High School in Western Sydney sometime around 2001. Punchbowl Boys is more of a prison, or a pressure cooker, than a school, where the boys casually fling knives, fists and insults at each other down the corridors. Bani calls many of these boys 'Lebs', but they are not all Lebanese. He uses the term to refer to any number of Muslim and Arab identities. He wants to be a novelist, which makes the other I found this an immersive and thrilling reading experience. We meet Bani Adam at Punchbowl Boys High School in Western Sydney sometime around 2001. Punchbowl Boys is more of a prison, or a pressure cooker, than a school, where the boys casually fling knives, fists and insults at each other down the corridors. Bani calls many of these boys 'Lebs', but they are not all Lebanese. He uses the term to refer to any number of Muslim and Arab identities. He wants to be a novelist, which makes the other boys say he thinks he's better than them (he does). But much to his horror, outside the school his 'Middle Eastern appearance' (a term used widely in Australian media) causes him to be lumped in with the other boys.

You could call it a coming of age novel. The major turns of the narrative are the boys witnessing the September 11 attacks, Bani getting his first girlfriend, and Bani joining a multicultural arts project. For me the most enjoyable part moment of the plot was a character sashaying in from another novel, Bucky from Peter Polites' Down the Hume. Polites and Ahmad are both members of Western Sydney's Sweatshop literary movement, raising the enticing possibility that they have some master conspiracy at play. The ending is subtle and heartbreaking, a moment of catharsis earned by every word in the previous 200-odd pages.

This novel touches on many themes: race, religion, class, sexuality, gender. I guess where it will be seen as most relevant is its window into 'multicultural' Australia (and not in the bureaucratic sense championed by Australia's politicians). It is also a window onto particular moment in time, when, in the wake of September 11, Muslim and Arabic men were all lumped together as terrorists and rapists. I thought it was a clever and provocative technique to write from Bani's outsider perspective, which is in someways aligned discomfortingly with my own as a white Australian (except, as Bani says, he would not be seen as white). The writing conveys an admirable complexity around some pretty heavy moments. For example, Bani describe the boys' reaction to September 11 as 'orgasmic'. At the same time it's clear this reaction comes from a mix of pride, teenage rebellion, hyper-masculinity and pain at the stigma from being different.

My favourite part of this book is its writing, which is a thrilling mix of the sacred and profane. Never before have I read romantic desert imaginings juxtaposed with lyrical odes to Big Macs and KFC, insults hurled by Bani's compatriots (usually variations of "slut" and "faggot" - it's always women and gays), Arabic phrases and prayers, and quotes from Nabakov's Lolita, often all within the same sentence. I can't wait to read it again to pick up on more of the nuances. ...more

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Feb 03, 2019 Naaz rated it really liked it

I went into this book expecting not to enjoy it. Growing up in western Sydney around the kinds of boys the main character, Bani, calls ‘Lebs’ made me weary and reluctant to dive back into a world I was never really comfortable with.

But I am so glad I picked this book up. MMA’s writing is so unapologetically authentic and accurate that it felt almost triggering at times. The harsh and vivid language made me cringe in the same way it did when I was growing up. From the homophobic and racist slurs ...more

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Mar 10, 2018 Pip Tlaskal rated it really liked it

Very powerful, very incendiary. Having briefly taught at a school like this, I hope the author knows how to defend himself as much as his boxing character because there is enough in here to truly aggravate both Bankstown locals and women alike. MMA writes tough and wounding prose and you feel deeply for his character who is battling for his life, heart and mind in the hyper masculine world of Punchbowl Boys High. Happily, the recent principal Jihad Dib made some massive turnarounds to an institu ...more

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Aug 02, 2019 Michael Livingston rated it liked it

Vivid, bleak and occasionally funny. This is a look into a kind of toxic masculinity that isn't often examined closely. It's not fun to read, but I'm glad it exists. ...more

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Feb 21, 2018 Ash rated it liked it

Shelves: gr-giveaways

I received an ARC of this book for free in a goodreads giveaway.

A furious, shambling, sweaty and bloody mess of a book; a gateway into a world I'd previously only seen snatches of; a book that more or less abandons plot and instead just hurtles forward, aiming at target after target as it passes them. Fortunately, it hits pretty much all of them. ...more

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Jul 12, 2020 Mohammed Morsi rated it it was amazing

It's fast, punchy and it's that voice Australia must begin to listen to. It is also Australia. We tend to pick up what we want to read, although equally important it is to challenge yourself, read what will confront us and perhaps even change the way we see. If you consider yourself Australian, think again. This book will make you think about who you really are. Read it. Brilliant. ...more

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Feb 14, 2020 Bilal rated it it was amazing

Shelves: culture-race, fiction

shu brooooo!

mohammed cuz, its bilal from punchbowl, we did english tugevva before I dropped out

what a gronk bro i cant belieive you actually ended up writing a book. a fucking whole book bro and you called it the lebs you mad dog!

i dun get a lot of the same stuff from it that these 5 star blokes are telling you but shit bro you can spit metaphor dat would make biggie mad

but ded set that american pie scene was hectic! and all u haters eminem sed it first “black mans music so selfishly and use it ...more

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Feb 02, 2019 Claire Gilmour rated it it was ok

The tone of this book felt very authentic but I just didn’t really enjoy it. The way they treated each other, their teachers, women. It may be an insight into another culture and minority group - and that insight might be very accurate - but I just didn’t like it very much.

I found the first part of the book hard to follow, the second part very repetitive and the third part just strange.

2 stars.

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Apr 29, 2018 Penny rated it did not like it

Very little plot or characterisation...or anything besides high school anecdotes from Punchbowl Boys High. Amusing but clearly just a compliation of Ahmad's high school scribblings, padded out by an attempt to create a love story with no beginning or end. I feel if this wasn't about an ethic minority or about being Muslim it never would have been published. ...more

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Mar 23, 2018 Rania T rated it really liked it

A book that captures the lingua franca of disillusioned Lebanese youth in the Bankstown area of Sydney in the early 2000's. Hypermasculine and confronting, but a novel that should be read. ...more

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Jul 02, 2019 Kimbofo rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2019-reviews

Michael Mohammed Ahmad’s novel The Lebs is a hard-hitting look at what it is like to grow up in Australia as the Muslim son of Lebanese immigrants.

Set in an all-boys school in Sydney in the late 1990s, it’s a potent mix of profanity, sex, lust, religion, racism, misogyny and hyper-masculinity.

It’s not an easy book to like. There are many confronting scenes and the language doesn’t pull its punches. Women are largely seen as sexual objects and there’s a dark undercurrent of racism running underne ...more

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Nov 15, 2018 Rusha rated it really liked it

Shelves: australian-author

In this hugely provocative and compelling read, Ahmad's titular Lebs are both victims and perpetrators. The prose is obscene, outrageous and frequently hilarious. It is just as rollicking and chaotic as Punchbowl Boys High School, which serves as the setting for much of the novel. And the final scene is a sucker punch to the stomach. An eye opening, haunting and hugely entertaining account of Lebanese Muslim identity from one of Western Sydney's most exciting authors. ...more

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Aug 08, 2018 Anne Fenn rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction

Boom!!! As my grandson writes when he's making an impression, this novel will knock you off your feet! It's hugely energetic, packed full of incident, emotion, action and reaction. It opens in Sydney's Punchbowl High, a pack, a gang of young Lebanese males set about destroying the joint. Well, not really, just in their thoughts and dreams. We follow Bani, he's the outsider, smart and not afraid of it. I can't describe how dramatic the nature of Ahmad's writing is...chockfull of strong language, ...more

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Mar 26, 2018 Shani Hartley rated it liked it

I have lived in Belmore and worked in Bankstown. Although it was many years ago, it helped me gain a glimpse of the local culture. As a teacher I have seen the nicest students become thugs when they operate in a gang. Thus, the novel rang true.

I thought I would sympathise with the protagonist who wanted to separate himself from those who surrounded him. I did not. Bani’s arrogance was annoying, even though it was serving as self-protection, a cloak I also adorned as a child, but it was tiresome ...more

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May 16, 2018 Kowther Qashou rated it really liked it

Shelves: ozlit

For people not from Western Sydney, this book might be a little unsavoury, or perhaps even confronting but as someone from Western Sydney, the characters in this book are very very real. It is real.

This book really threw me back to high school. Bani Adam really reminds me a lot of my high school self, how I always thought I was better because I wasn't like the other Arabs or wogs in my year. But really I was as naive as them and lacked a lot of self-awareness just like Bani does.

I do love Bani's ...more

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Sep 07, 2018 LC rated it liked it

Shelves: australian, fiction, dick-lit

This was heralded as a confronting read, but it's not my cup of tea - too much toxic masculinity, that I just didn't have the enthusiasm to pick through. To be honest, I probably wouldn't have finished it if I hadn't been on a plane, with nothing else to read. In particular, I found the last third of the book to be quite disconnected from the rest of the text. I wish I'd enjoyed it more, and am glad it exists, nonetheless. ...more

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Feb 02, 2019 Amy Hunter rated it it was ok

Shelves: bookclub

I don’t think this is a book that is meant to be “enjoyed” rather something to make you think and I respect it for that. Having said that I just did not like the style of writing - a mess of stories together with no plot line. The final part of the book was very odd as well.

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May 07, 2018 Zohal rated it really liked it

Recommends it for: Australians

Recommended to Zohal by: Susan

Shelves: authors-of-colour, contemporary, loveozya, 2018-releases

This really hit me hard.

I found the first half hard to get through but we hit a point in the plot halfway through where I became much more invested in the story.

This is definitely a character-driven book and the author actually completed this book as part of his PhD. You can see more information about his process of writing this book and more about what this book is about and the themes and ideas it challenges: https://www.westernsydney.edu.au/news...

The reason why I appreciate this book is be ...more

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Apr 26, 2019 R.W.V nee: Penny Reads rated it it was amazing

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Bleeding Hearts
https://reviewithaview.squarespace.com/

There was a time, during the heated debates and divided lines of the Cronulla Riots that my mother, my very white mother, was afraid. I was too young to recall the complexities of her reaction, but she was disgusted with the news, the actions of the ‘patriots’, the dismantling of perceived safety and rose-coloured harmony.

The whole thing was a boil on the behind of humanity.

She was afraid, because her husband, the father of her children loo ...more

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Mar 23, 2019 Claire rated it really liked it

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Jul 28, 2018 Alison rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: australia, fiction, race

There are books that gently seduce you in, weaving their way into your consciousness without you really realising the impact. The Lebs is not one of those books. Ahmad's novel straps the reader in for a wild ride, the fast pacing and tone shifts working to convey the intensity of teen masculinity in a specific time, place and context. I found it an unforgettable read, the more so because it expects the reader to do the work of sorting out what all this means.
Ahmad's setting is a flashpoint in A There are books that gently seduce you in, weaving their way into your consciousness without you really realising the impact. The Lebs is not one of those books. Ahmad's novel straps the reader in for a wild ride, the fast pacing and tone shifts working to convey the intensity of teen masculinity in a specific time, place and context. I found it an unforgettable read, the more so because it expects the reader to do the work of sorting out what all this means.
Ahmad's setting is a flashpoint in Australian society: Punchbowl Boys High in the early millennium. This is a time when the Sydney media was in a near hysterical state about "Lebanese gangs", coverage which had started well before the high profile gang rapes. Entire suburbs - Punchbowl, Lakemba, Bankstown - were frequently used as synonyms for chaotic evil in the Daily Tele and talkback. Prior to 9/11 this narrative was primarily racial rather than religious - with a dogwhistle implication that the violence of Beirut was caused by the violence of its young male inhabitants - but that shifted and broadened quickly after a Saudi terrorist living in Afghanistan became a global symbol. Of course my viewpoint - that of an Anglo-descended Sydneysider - is not the viewpoint of the book, although it obviously informs my reading.

Ahmad takes us into the quadrangles and classrooms of Punchbowl High, through the eyes of Bani Adams, who like most teens, feels desperately and secretly like he doesn't belong. Somewhere beyond the walls of his school prison, he's sure, is a white, literary community he belongs to. If this makes it all sound very emo, it really, really isn't. Ahmad punches his sentences out rapidly, capturing a sense of physicality. Sweat glistens off the page. Violence and desire and stress are all rendered on the bodies of the protagonists. Bani's shifting perspective can have a whiplash quality to it, as his moments of growth are punctuated by losing control, or at least allowing the tensions so inherent to any adolescence, let alone one crowded by global tension, explode.

But the book isn't really about Bani. I mean, Bani is our guide on this journey, but Ahmad isn't interested in overly pretending this isn't primarily a book about a community at a moment in time. The boys of Punchbowl High muck up, they get mad, they pray, they drink and then debate absolution. They scream anti-Semitic slogans and joke about the promiscuity of white 'Aussie' girls. They cruise for blow jobs, watch porn in class, defend their mothers and decide when and how to retaliate against FOB (Pacific Islander) conflict with Lebs. They navigate a community as rife with religious difference, different nationalities and varying power dynamics as any other. And they do that while trying to make sense of everyday, and not-so-everyday, hypocrisies stemming from living in a hostile culture. Most of all, the Lebs in this book, demand to be heard.

Bots of this are particularly hard to read as a member of a family of educators. The failures of Punchbowl High are not the focus of the book, but they are criminal. I felt bile in my throat at times, as (some) teachers, principals and most of all an entire education systems completely failed to give a crap, leaving an entire generation without anything resembling an education. There is savagery in this portrayal, of an institution more prison than school, and more concerned with corralling and going through the motions than any outcome. It contrasts sharply with later experiences Bani has with boxing, where teaching occurs.

Reading a couple of the mainstream reviews on this did my head in. I started to wonder if they had read the same book that I had. For starters, they found the book funny, which, well I can admire the humour, wasn't a term I would have chosen for my own reading. But then, they both suggested that a particular line – voiced by a female character – that blamed gang rape victims for being promiscuous was "going too far". I was a little bewildered, did this mean that so many of the other sentiments voiced by characters – kill all Jews, for starters – was just AOK? It implied to me that they thought somehow Ahmad was telling a morality tale here, shaping characters for his audience to identify with and learn from. And that somehow, these characters had to fit within a mainstream left narrative about what is and isn't acceptable. It didn't help that one also argued that the boys' religiosity wasn't credible, not only misunderstanding the culture portrayed, but perhaps unaware that it is a different culture.
It was particularly irksome to me because of the denouement of the book (which is slightly clumsier in construct than the rest) comes with savage exposure of some artsy theatre types, who arrive to create a play in the west, while showing only interest in their own reactions to it. Ahmad forcefully contrasts Bani's distress at a slogan the others barely notice, with their passionate interest in sexist comments: exactly the sluts attitude, actually. In entirely unsubtle ways – and the book is not about subtle, so that's not a criticism – we are shown how unable white Sydney is to just listen, be aware, sit with or try to understand this part of it. This is all reflected through Bani's journey: his realisation of what it means to be of a culture, and how to understand the ways it empowers, not limits you.
But while I'm tempted to leave that as a nice pat ending the review, it might suggest a nice pat ending to a book which is not at all into that. This book is a challenge to understand, to avoid filters. Much of the content is confronting, but some of it is amazingly tender, particularly the portrayal of Bani's gentle, devout father; the solace he finds in boxing, and the teaching that comes with it; and the even the deep commitment of the boys. This isn't a condemnation or a celebration of a culture, it is a demand that we stop trying to make judgments through our filter and listen, learn and engage. ...more

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May 12, 2019 Nancy rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2019

Finished: 12.05.2019
Genre: novel
Rating: A
#NSW Lit Award 2019
Conclusion:

Winner of New South Wales Award
Australia's most prestigious literary prize for
Multicultural Writing 2019

Gritty, raw
perhaps not everyone's cup of tea
...but is has a message.
" ...please don’t buy any more books written by
White people about Indigenous people,
colored people, and boat people.
Buy our books and let us speak for ourselves."

M.M. Ahmad, second generation Arab-Australian Muslim
whose family was illiterate.
He has work ...more

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Jun 13, 2019 Kim rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2019-read, australian-author, fiction, australian-fiction, act-library, australian, cultural-australia, literary-fiction, contemporary-fiction, contemporary

The Lebs are on the loose, loping around Punchbowl high in some black comedic moments and our narrator is doing his best to navigate it all. Delivering a powerful punch to the guts at the end.
Unputdownable!
Urban Australia can be pretty animalistic, especially if your a Muslim boy in Bankstown around 9/11.
This is the sort of book that should be read in Australian highschools instead of Catcher-in-the-Rye.
Bloody fantastic work.
A great addition to the Miles Franklin Long-list. So raw! Loved it! ...more

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Mar 16, 2018 Catherine rated it liked it

As a sister to three younger brothers who grew up in Sydney around the time this book was set, I loved the first two parts. Flashback city.
Then Bani finished school and part 3 lost me. Part three didn’t seem to connect with the first two parts of the story, the characters disappeared, there was little link to family and I couldn’t follow the thread. Then it just stopped. Perhaps it’s the fact that this is part of a trilogy, so maybe it is linking in to a broader story but after a cracking and e ...more

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Dec 24, 2018 Jennifer rated it did not like it

I abandoned this book. It may be an authentic voice; it may be we need to hear from those on the margins who are disenfranchised. But I couldn’t handle their shit - how they treated each other and how they treated their teachers. It was repetitive and disheartening. So I abandoned it. I’d give it no stars but then it wouldn’t count in the GR average. Just because it may be an authentic voice, doesn’t mean it is worthy of being listened to.

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About Michael Mohammed Ahmad

Michael Mohammed Ahmad

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Michael Mohammed Ahmad is an Arab-Australian writer, editor and community arts worker. He is the founding director of Sweatshop: Western Sydney Literacy Movement. In 2012, he received the Australia Council Kirk Robson Award in recognition of his outstanding achievements in community cultural development. Mohammed’s debut novel, The Tribe (Giramondo, 2014), won the 2015 Sydney Morning Herald Best Y ...more