Qld Greens Anti-Racist Book Club: Songs for the Dead and the Living

About

Stories are powerful. They're a way to learn and connect with experiences separate to your own.

In Australia, white stories dominate the media landscape - the majority of published authors are white. To read books by non-white authors, you have to consciously aim to diversify your reading. This bookclub is a way to do that, and work to be better anti-racism allies.

This is a non-academic bookclub. We aim to be accessibly to everyday people. If you're interested in reading more academic or non-fiction books, there are a lot of excellent anti-racist reading lists available online.

The Book

For our second book, we are reading Songs for the Dead and the Living by Sara M Saleh. It's a multi-generational novel following a Palestinian family as they live their life while going through multiple displacements, from Beirut, to Cairo, to Australia. Sara M Saleh is an award-winning writer, poet, human rights lawyer and the daughter of migrants from Palestine, Egypt and Lebanon.

The book is available in print, ebook and audiobook. You can get it from:

• Libraries

  • Print/ebook copies are available across most South-East Queensland library services

  • Audiobook copies is only available at Moreton Bay libraries

• Bookshops

  • I'd recommend supporting your local independent bookshop if possible

• Online audiobook

  • I'd recommend getting the audiobook from Libro.fm, an audiobook provider that lets you support your local bookshop

The book is written in everyday conversational English. It includes some Arabic words. Their meaning can be inferred based on context, but if needed you can translate them using a Romanized Arabic to English translator.

The Event

The event will be held online on Zoom. Participants can talk verbally or in text on chat. A zoom link will be sent out closer to the date. The structure of the event is as follows:

• We take turns introducing ourselves and give our first thoughts on the book.

• If there's some common themes coming through from our introductions, we will continue to explore some of those in discussions. If not, the facilitator has some questions that can be used to guide further discussions.