Books And Ideas At Montalto

Michael Mohammed Ahmad is a writer whose novels explore Australia’s smouldering tribalism – found as much within its communities as between them – eschewing clichés and easy, feel-good conclusions. His first novel, The Tribe, introduced readers to the complex family life of protagonist Bani Adam, a young boy from a religious Lebanese Muslim family in western Sydney. In The Lebs, Bani is a teenager grappling with a different set of conflicts – about superiority, sexuality, violence and faith – played out against the backdrop of high school and graduation. Ahmad’s writing stings and sparks; it’s tense, insistent and unsettling, deploying a hungry, confrontational vernacular. Bani’s narration doesn’t present a worthy, heartwarming model of Lebanese Australian-ness. Instead, we’re offered a provocative, complex and sometimes brutal portrait – take or leave it. In conversation with host Elizabeth McCarthy, Michael Mohammed Ahmad discusses multicultural identities, coming of age and the disorienting power of langua