Songs for the Dead and the Living

When the ground beneath your feet is always shifting, how can you ever know where you belong?


Jamilah has always believed she knows where her home is: in a house above a paint shop on the outskirts of Beirut, with her large, chaotic, loving family. But she soon learns that as Palestinian refugees, her family's life in Lebanon is precarious, and they must try to blend in even as they fight to retain their identity. When conflict comes to Beirut, Jamilah's world fractures, and the family is forced to flee to Cairo: another escape, and another slip further away from Palestine, the homeland to which they cannot return. In the end, Jamilah will have to choose between holding on to everything she knows and pursuing a life she can truly call her own.

Songs for the Dead and the Living is a coming-of-age tale played out across generations and continents, from Palestine to Australia. Through stunning prose, acclaimed writer and human-rights activist Sara M Saleh offers a breathtaking portrait of the fragilities and flaws of family in the wake of war, and the love it takes to overcome great loss.

Sara M Saleh is an award-winning writer, poet, human rights lawyer, and the daughter of migrants from Palestine, Egypt, and Lebanon. Her poems, short stories, and essays have been widely published nationally in English and Arabic. She is co-editor of the groundbreaking 2019 Arab, Australian, Other.

Sara made history as the first poet to win both the Australian Book Review's 2021 Peter Porter Poetry Prize and the Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize 2020. Her 2023 poetry collection, The Flirtation of Girls/Ghazal el-Banat (UQP) was shortlisted for the 2024 ALS Gold Medal and the Mary Gilmore Award, and won the 2023 Anne Elder Award. Her first novel, Songs for the Dead and the Living, won the Barbara Jefferis Award and was shortlisted for the Multicultural NSW Award at the NSW Premier's Literary Award.

Sara lives on Bidjigal land with her partner and their fur children, cappy and belly hooks.

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