This debut collection of short stories by Yumna Kassab is remarkable for its minimalism.
Set in the suburbs of Western Sydney, it portrays the lives of Lebanese immigrants, and their families. The stories revolve around their hopes and regrets, their feelings of isolation, and their nostalgia for what they might have lost or left behind. In particular, The House of Youssef is about relationships, and the customs which complicate them: children growing away from their parents, parents anxious about their children’s futures, the intricacies of marriage, the breakable bonds of friendship.
Shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award 2020
Longlisted for the Stella Prize 2020
Shortlisted for the Steele Rudd Award at the QLD Literary Awards 2020
Shortlisted for the 2020 Readings Prize
Shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards 2020
This could be any small town. It aches under the heat of summer. It flourishes in the cooler months. Everyone knows everyone. Their families, histories and stories are interwoven and well-known by one and all. Or at least, they think they are. But no-one sees anything quite the same way. Perceptions differ, truths are elusive, judgements have outcomes and everything is connected. For better or for worse.
This is a version of small-town Australia that is recognisable, both familiar and new, exploring the characters, threads, and connections that detail everyday life to reveal a much bigger story. A tapestry that makes up this place called home.
Shortlisted for the 2022 Queensland Literary Awards
What happens when we become used to each other, when we become bored, when we anticipate each other’s moods like the seasons cycled in a day? What happens when you are tired of me and I tire of you?
Every couple has a story. How they met, how they fell in love their ups, their downs. What made them want to be in each other’s arms day and night. The struggle of family expectations. The need to please each other, the desire to go their separate ways. It is about the private universe between two people as they try to hold to each other despite the barriers of geography, culture and class.
Every couple has a beginning, a middle, and maybe an end.
The Lovers is an enchanting fable that explores the light and dark of a relationship a love distilled down to its barest form. You might think you know this story. Maybe you do.
Shortlisted for the 2023 Miles Franklin Award
Shortlisted for the 2023 Prime Minister’s Literary Award
Shortlisted for the 2023Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards
A captivating literary journey that delves into the intertwined lives of a town, its people, and a region shaped by revolution and war.
The war broke out and she decided to call her dad. Weeks and weeks they do not speak, and the weeks become months and then they are so many years. She imagines herself starting this story. She imagines how she will tell this story later to someone else. We hadn’t spoken for years but then the war broke out…
As conflict plays out across an unnamed region, its inhabitants deal with the fallout. Families are torn apart and brought together. A divide grows between those on either side of the war, compromises are struck as the toll of violence impacts near and far. We learn about those who are left behind and those who choose to leave in a great scattering. As the stories of those affected play out, they weave together to show the whole of a society in the most extreme of circumstances. Even after the last shot is fired, their world will never recover.
From the acclaimed author of The House of Youssef, Australiana and The Lovers comes a powerful new novel that asks again if it’s possible to ever measure the personal cost of war.
Shortlisted for the 2024 Queensland Literary Awards
Longlisted for the 2025 Miles Franklin Literary Award
Good News: The worst has already happened. Bad News: Even worse is on the way.
This is a fictional theory, a rant, a manifesto, an engagement or disengagement with the times, a record; it is bearing witness, a dramatisation of actual events, a horror-scape, either a monologue or dialogue, a testament, travel guide, handbook, textbook, potential encyclopaedia; it is five mini-novels or else five post-novels, an epic, a drop in the ocean, an homage, a reference, one long secret handshake, an agreement, a wink; it is an explosion of form, tangential, discursive, a firming of the foundations, a lament, an absurdist comedy with realism that is as realistic as it gets; it is a spectrum, shades of black from the dark to the next shade up from white, a proliferation, a step back, a righting, a note to oneself, a line in the sand or a gust in the form of a structure-shaking gale; it is a dance (a two-footed, single-person linedance), an experiment, pure science, flicking the finger; it is, of course, backing away, crossing the street and avoiding eye contact; it is fantasy, humour, a romance without any leads, a defiance, a subdued rebellion, an anti-philosophical philosophy; it is pacifism that instigates a fight, a denouncement in the form of a laugh, an exploration, an adventure, a time lapse, a panorama, a conclusion; you may just have to read the theory because these are just alluding-to-the-theory words.
Reviews and other related material can be found here.
Politica was released on the 3rd of January, 2024. It is my fourth book. It is set in an unnamed region and examines the impact of politics on people’s lives. There are no dates and times, the typical details found in common presentation of politics. Instead, my attention is on individuals in a community and…
It’s almost the end of the year and I wanted to make a list of the books in translation that I have really enjoyed this year. I tried reading The Unworthy by Agustina Bazterrica but it wasn’t the right time for me. I know I will come back to it but instead, I lost myself…
It’s always so exciting to come across a fantastic debut. Two years ago, I found Only Sound Remains by Hossein Asgari at Parramatta Library, and it was one of the best books I read in 2023. This time, it is Plastic Budgie by Olivia De Zilva. I read this book in a 24 hour period…
The House of Youssef was released six years ago at the start of September, 2019. Before this book was published, I had been writing for fifteen years. Almost all of those writings were stories and even these days, the majority of my writing is fiction. I do write an occasional essay but to my mind,…
I love to read horror but I don’t think I have ever been so creeped out by a book as by Old Soul by Susan Barker. I first came across the book in a roundup in the Guardian and then I found it at my local library. The story is otherworldly, creepy and unsettling. There…
As I do for every one of my books, I try to put all the reviews in one place. Here is a list of reviews and related material connected to The Theory of Everything. This list will be updated when necessary. In other news, Jumaana Abdu read a version of Two Burials at an event…
I have a few events coming up in the next few weeks for The Theory of Everything. Firstly, there’s an author talk at Newcastle Library on Saturday the 17th of May. It will be at 6pm in the evening. It is free to attend. All details can be found here. The Sydney Writers’ Festival is…
Occasionally there will be a book that I simply can’t put down. The last time that happened was when I read Reservoir Bitches by Dahlia de la Cerda which was fantastic on so many levels. This time, it was Learned Behaviours by Zeynab Gamieldien which doesn’t come out till August this year. I picked this…
So what is The Theory of Everything? Firstly, I am referencing the non-existent scientific “theory of everything.” I have been wondering for a while now how does a writer try to capture the world we live in through fiction. My sense is that by sticking to a narrative structure that follows A to B and…
It has been a great year for reading and I want to share here a list of the books that have really stood out for me this year. * Always Will Be by Mykaela Saunders This collection of short stories is inventive, and I read it in April when I desperately needed hope. It is speculative and…
To witness the destruction and cruelty and sheer violence of the last year means that we simply cannot live or think as we did before. Whoever we are today is different to the people we were a year ago. The intensity of violence across the past twelve months is connected to a longer string that…
Her books have been listed for the Miles Franklin Award, Stella Prize, QLD Literary Awards, Victorian Premier’s Awards, NSW Premier’s Literary Awards and the Prime Minister’s Literary Award.
A complete list of her writings can be found under Other Writings.
Yumna Kassab 