The Tribe by Michael Mohammed Ahmad
Recommended for ages 13+
Giramondo Publishing
The Tribe, by Arab-Australian writer, editor, teacher and community arts worker Michael Mohammed Ahmad, is short but powerful. It focuses on the experiences of Bani, an Arab-Australian boy, his family and their wider community.
The Tribe was Ahmed’s first work of fiction. It insightfully considers issues of identity, family, community, loyalty and love.
The text makes clear both the struggle and beauty at the heart of one immigrant family’s experiences of being Australian. The book is richly descriptive, and the reader is carried into the home that is the centre of Bani’s world.
From Australia
Jim KABLE
5.0 out of 5 stars Your Tribe Michael - and I am seeing My Tribe in sharp relief!
Reviewed in Australia on 1 February 2015
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Brilliant piece of writing - something of "Scout"-quality in "To Kill A Mocking-bird", too.
A coming-of-age story of immediate pre-puberty-like clarity and innocence.
And a heart-warming window on another culturally diverse ethnic group in this Australian environment.
My father was born in St. Peter's (Unwins Bridge Road) - in 1927. A twin. His mother from Scotland.
Like all families - complexities. Marriages and deaths and births. Celebrated in culturally appropriate ways - observed by younger members trying to make sense of the ceremonies and of the human behaviour within the parameters of culture and personality.
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Edwina
5.0 out of 5 stars Great book
Reviewed in Australia on 3 August 2018
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Great book
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Suzanne Clarke
4.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful read
Reviewed in the United States on 9 November 2014
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So very interesting, a fascinating look at an immigrant family in Australia seen through a young boys eyes, their culture and tradition. The detail is exquisite and felt immersed in this family.
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Caitlin
5.0 out of 5 stars C
Reviewed in the United States on 28 July 2014
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A slice of Sydney, and a look into a world I'd only ever seen from the outside. The writing is refreshing and honest
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Jackie Australia
5.0 out of 5 stars thank you
Reviewed in the United States on 12 October 2014
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Great books always make me feel grateful. Thank you to the writer for this book. This book has a voice.
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Nat K
462 reviews
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August 23, 2022
Alexandria. An inner city suburb of Sydney. Only 4kms from the central business district. Lined with terrace houses. It has an old world charm. This is where the book opens. And where The Tribe lives. Part of a greater community of people who fled the troubles in Lebanon in the 1970s, to build a new life in Australia.
"There are only nine migrant kids in the whole school, and six of them are from my family."
This novella is told via three vignettes from the perspective of Bani, when he is seven, nine and eleven years of age. The important things he remembers from his childhood. The events that stuck in his head. Three generations of the family are crowded into this tiny terrace. Each facing their own challenges.
It's an insight into a clash of cultures. A poignant story which shows the world viewed through the naivete of a child, who at other times shows wisdom beyond his years. Viewing the way the men and women of his (extended) family have very specific roles. The blend of merging into a new lifestyle while retaining traditional values has its difficulties. And how all families have their black sheep, difficulties and skeletons in their closet. And yet blood is always thicker than water.
It's honest, raw and unflinching. It doesn't turn away from topics which are harder to talk about, and which may not be discussed in some cultures. Drug taking, mental health, domestic abuse. And yet there are moments of utter beauty, where the sun shines brightly. And there's lots of humour, I was smiling at some of the scenarios more than once.
In some respects moments of this reminded me of Christos Tsiolkas' Jump Cuts. That feeling of sitting between two cultures, having one foot in each, yet not completely belonging in either. It's a complicated scenario, and one that most first generation migrants and children of immigrants feel.
"I was only seven when..."
A crowded terrace house. Grandmother, brothers, sisters, Uncles, Aunties, cousins, all crammed in together. Little space, less privacy, yet strong bonds, despite differences of opinion, and degrees of lifestyle.
"I was only nine when..."
A celebration! Think the movie My Greek Wedding Eastern style. Diamantes flashing, trimmed goatees, lots of hair gel, perfume and after shave. Tables filled with food and whisky. Dancing dancing dancing. Anyone who's ever been to a massive Wedding will completely understand. Loved.
"I was only eleven when..."
The loss of Bani's Grandmother. Such a tough chapter. Someone who has been there every day is no more. The emotions which are so hard to explain and process as an adult, are compounded in one so young. Really tough to deal with this section, it opens so many wounds.
Michael Mohamammed Ahmad is also the writer of The Lebs and The Other Half of You. His other books are definitely on my radar.
I invite you to Neale's blog ✒ He has a link to an interview with the Author which is fascinating about his experiences growing up in Australia, coming from a minority background:
https://www.nealesbookblog.com/post/t...
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Ali
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August 26, 2019
A series of coming of age vignettes that add up to a satisfying whole. Ahmad explores childhood-to-adolescence years, the joys and perils of tight-knit communities, and the changing relationships children of extended families. I really wish I didn't have to point out that these stories of Australians who rarely get to read stories about themselves, but I do. Don't read it for that though - read it because this book is sweet, and nostalgic and will make you feel like a tween again.
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*❆ Kαɾҽɳ ❆*
414 reviews
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March 8, 2016
It was a very descriptive short story, but beautifully written in so many parts of the story, great use of symbolism and metaphors about his family, if only I could read it for the first time again! Absolutely loved it!
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Brittany
36 reviews
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April 19, 2015
The last chapter made the book a lot better. This section really drew me in and made me feel for the characters and made me feel as if I was in their house with them.
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Kyle Freeman
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April 1, 2018
A wonderfully detailed, honest and touching story about family.
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Karys McEwen
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July 14, 2015
I had been wanting to read The Tribe for a while, because the blurb promises a representation of Arab-Australian Muslims that isn’t coloured by “media reports of sexual assault, drug-dealing, drive-by shootings and terrorist conspiracy.” I love the descriptive nature of this novel, and the young narrator suited the story perfectly. I think this book definitely delivered what it promised, but despite it’s diminutive size it started to feel a little tired by the end, and I feel the last third (and last chapter) of the book was a repeat of what I had already read. Three stars, because the first two chapters in the book were brilliantly written.
Read more on my blog: Middle Chapter
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Mentai
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April 27, 2018
Ahmad brings detailed family relationships to life within a minority Shi'ite Lebanese community in western Sydney. He does so from the perspective of a young boy at varying ages (between 7 and 11). I gained insight into kinship, tradition, and cultual identity through the curious character, Bani. At times, the language of the narrator did not seem match the excess of the observation: the huge Arab wedding and dance scenes, scents and smells, fight, women's bodies, illness and love of family. But maybe this disjunction indicates the difficulty of living across several cultures.
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Ifdal E
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July 16, 2017
I enjoyed and connected with this book a lot. Finally we're writing our own stories. It's an example of a very new, raw, type of literature coming out of South-West Sydney.
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Jayarna ✨
419 reviews
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April 5, 2021
There were some parts of this I really enjoyed, however for a short book it felt very long in some places. The author has some serious pacing issues - there's a lot of detail included that is really irrelevant in the big picture narrative, like copious amounts of physical description, repetition of standout facts I already knew as if they had never been said before. The last chapter was definitely the strongest, but I found myself disengaged for a good portion of the story in the lead up to this chapter. I also found the end jarring, with Bani mentioning he was writing this down.
I wish we also got more of Bani's personal thoughts. At times I felt like he was simply rattling off everything he could see and didn't talk about the ways he related to that picture. At times he feels like an narrator that is not actually present in the story. I did appreciate in some aspects you could really see where his family influenced his opinions and the ways he saw the world. However there was too many parts where he was simply narrating without a character voice.
However I do think the author achieved his intention - I just think he could've done it better.
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Lisa
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January 22, 2016
It’s a long time since I’ve been to Sydney. I haven’t had any reason to go now that I have no family there, but even in the days when I made the occasional fly-in/fly out visit for a family celebration or a conference, I never got to know the city very well. That makes me part of the audience for this small book, because it is written with firm intent. It is a political work, created with the intention of redressing what the author thinks is the misrepresentation by the media of Arab-Australians in western Sydney. You can read about Michael Mohammed Ahmad’s big ambitions for this small book in an article at The Guardian …
I know two Sydneys: fleeting impressions of the tourist attractions and conference centres I’ve visited and the fashionable inner city addresses where my sister lived – and a night of sheer terror when in my twenties I drove along up from Melbourne with my son asleep in the back of the car, to rendezvous with my husband at a suburban motel on the Parramatta Road. It was in the middle of the night and a gang of hoons in their hoonmobiles thought it would be fun to ‘escort’ me into Sydney. It was not until a police car turned up on patrol that they melted into the side streets, leaving me with an impression of Sydney as a place where a woman apparently alone was not safe on a main thoroughfare.
Neither impression is the real Sydney, of course. It’s not so different to Melbourne, and it’s like many cities overseas as well. A tourist and business centre, clean, shiny and bright - and then the vast mass of suburbs full of people who are as individual as their fingerprints. It’s multicultural in the way that Melbourne is, or London or dozens of other cities around the world. Ethnicities converge in certain suburbs, and disperse themselves. (Cheap, immigrant-rich areas in Sydney contain a mix of ethnicities rather than ghettoes, see this interactive data visualisation at the SMH). But for reasons which those who read tabloids and listen to shock jocks will know better than I do, the Lebanese of Western Sydney have acquired a bad reputation. The Tribe - a novella in the Giramondo Shorts series – sets out to redress this.
It’s a book that celebrates the customs and lifestyle of a large extended family of Lebanese-Australians, as told in first person monologue by Bani, a child of seven when the book begins. The family are minority Shi’ite Muslims in a community of Sunnis, but although their faith seems strong, they have abandoned observances such as daily prayer, they drink alcohol and the women don’t ‘dress modestly’. Bani is somewhat immune to some of the cultural norms in his community: when his mate Omar at Lakemba Public School ticks him off because he doesn’t know how to eat pies from the school canteen, and that he should open the top and eat it with a spoon, Bani ignores him.
Since I grew up in Alexandria, right next to Redfern, I know the Australian way to eat a pie. (p. 120)
To read the rest of my review, please visit http://anzlitlovers.com/2014/07/13/th...
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