Vibrating with life and woven with evocative Arabic fables, these stories are about the differences between Lebanese and Australian culture: between parents and children, new lives and old. With warmth, humour and insight, Sallis's eloquent prose captures the pain as well as the joys of living in a new land.
Zein, Farhan, Rayya and their circle are migrants of the fifties, yearning for both their future and their past. Their children, Salah, Rima, Hussein and their friends are young Australians with a distinctive voice and place, succeeding or failing in the clash between generations, struggling for independence in the face of their parents' hopes and dreams.
Abdal-Rahman is an Iraqi refugee who has lost everything. And Ali, Ahmad, Akram and Yusuf are children in Palestine and Baghdad who have no future but whose stories soar.
'Mahjar' is about lives, journeys and stories, about exile and the experiences that push people to new homelands. Through interwoven stories and fables, it evokes Australia's intimate connection with the Middle East. as well as the joys of living in a new land.
