about MARSH BIRD

This is the story of Dhurgham, a young Iraqi who has lost everything. A powerful, exquisitely written novel that gives a human face to the experiences of exile and migration.
Description
Dhurgham As-Samarra'i is a twelve-year-old boy, the youngest child in a middle-class Baghdadi family. He finds himself at the Great Mosque in Damascus in Syria, not knowing what has happened to his parents and sister who fled Baghdad with him. The only thing he knows is that he was told that if the family became separated they were to meet at the Mosque. Alone, he waits and waits.
This is the story of what befalls Dhurgham after he realises his family won't be turning up; it is the story of his journey into adulthood, his journey through bitterness to forgiveness, and his journey from Iraq to Syria, to Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand and beyond.
Detained after arriving in Australia, Dhurgham, resilient yet unable to deal with his past, becomes an untried criminal existing in limbo as his file is processed. Fleetingly, New Zealand offers a refuge, family and affection but he is caught again in a nightmare of red-tape and confinement until his hope turns into anger and his past must be faced and resolved.
What do you do when you belong nowhere, with no family, no homeland, and no hope for the future? Who do you become?
A searingly honest story about separation, journeys and unbearable injustice.
Awards
The Marsh Birds won the Asher literary award in 2005 & has been shortlisted for the Age Book of the Year, the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, the Festival Awards for Literature, the NSW Premier's Literature Awards & the Colin Roderick Award.*
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About Eva Sallis
Eva Sallis was born in Bendigo. She has an MA in literature and a PhD in comparative literature from The University of Adelaide. She won The Australian/Vogel Literary Award in 1997 for her first novel, Hiam. Eva's second novel, The City of Sealions, was published in 2002, followed by the winner of the Steele Rudd Award, Mahjar in 2003 and Fire Fire in 2004.
An Iraqi boy undergoes a harrowing series of trials in Sallis's fifth novel, a harsh but only partially convincing indictment of the author's native Australia's indifference to political refugees. Twelve-year-old Dhurgham, whose well-to-do father runs afoul of the Hussein regime, gets separated from his family while fleeing Iraq and waits for them for weeks at the Great Mosque in Damascus. Eventually, he is taken in by a Syrian man named Hosni, a pedophile who steals Dhurgham's money and forces the boy into an increasingly abusive relationship that lasts five years, until Hosni fears "the threat of Dhurgham's manhood disrupting everything." Hosni sends Dhurgham to Australia, where he is placed in the Mawirrigun detention camp with hundreds of other Muslim refugees. Dhurgham, now 17 and with his refugee status in limbo, vacillates between violence and depression, ultimately launching a hunger strike that gets him transferred to New Zealand. There, he attempts to rejoin society, but the cultural differences may be too great to overcome. Sallis is well known in Australia for her politically charged fiction (Mahjar and The City of Sealions also deal with the intersection of Australia and the Middle East), but she overplays her hand, creating a portrait that is sympathetic but without much nuance. (Oct.)
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From School Library Journal
Adult/High School–This novel opens with Dhurgham, 12, waiting for his family at the Great Mosque in Damascus. They had escaped from Iraq together, and his parents told him that if they became separated, they should meet up at the mosque. When they fail to show up, the boy begins a harrowing journey as he tries to build a new life for himself. He spends several years in a relentlessly bleak refugee detention camp in the Australian desert. When he finally manages to escape to New Zealand, he finds a home with a family who showers him with good intentions. Dhurgham allows himself to hope and to forgive. As he approaches adulthood, however, his New Zealand hosts become fearful that any Middle Eastern male could become a danger to them. The young man now believes his past may be inescapable. The author explores themes of exile and belonging accessibly and artistically. Her writing is not sentimental, yet is deeply felt and relevant. Readers will gain insight into the plight of modern-day asylum seekers, an important contemporary issue.–Susanne Bardelson, Kitsap Regional Library, WA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
As twelve-year-old Dhurgham As-Samarra'i waits at the mosque where his family was supposed to meet if separated during their attempt to flee Baghdad, he realizes that no one else is coming to meet him. Following Dhurgham, as he builds a new life for himself with no homeland, family, or hope for the future, this searing and honest novel about separation, journey, and justice probes, questions, illuminates, and humanizes important moral and social issues.
Dhurgham As-Samarra'i is a 12-year-old boy, the youngest child in a middle-class Baghdadi family. He finds himself at the Great Mosque in Damascus in Syria, not knowing what has happened to his parents and sister who fled Baghdad with him. The only thing he knows is that he was told that if the family became separated they were to meet at the Mosque. Alone, he waits and waits.

About the Author

Eva Sallis was born in Bendigo. She has an MA in literature and a PhD in comparative literature from the University of Adelaide. She won The Australian/Vogel Literary Award in 1997 for her first novel, Hiam. Eva's second novel, The City of Sealions, was published in 2002, followed by the winner of the Steele Rudd Award, Mahjar in 2003 and Fire Fire in 2004.
Dhurgham al-Samarra'i is a twelve-year-old boy, the youngest child in a middle-class Baghdadi family. He finds himself at the Great Mosque in Damascus in Syria, not knowing what has happened to his parents and sister who fled Baghdad with him. The only thing he knows is that he was told that if the family became separated they were to meet at the Mosque. Alone, he waits and waits.

This is the story of what befalls Dhurgham after he realises his family won't be turning up
it is the story of his journey into adulthood, his journey through bitterness to forgiveness, and his journey from Iraq to Syria, to Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand and beyond.

Detained after arriving in Australia, Dhurgham, resilient yet unable to deal with his past, becomes an untried criminal existing in limbo as his file is processed. Fleetingly, New Zealand offers a refuge, family and affection but he is caught again in a nightmare of red-tape and confinement until his hope turns into anger and his past must be faced and resolved.

What do you do when you belong nowhere, with no family, no homeland, and no hope for the future? Who do you become?

A searingly honest story about separation, journeys and unbearable injustice.