The Other Half Of You: Shortlisted For The Miles Franklin Literary Award 2022

Local Description

Matilda Bookshop Review

In The Other Half of You, author Michael Mohammed Ahmad tells the semi-autobiographical tale of Bani, a young Lebanese man who's the first in his Alawite family to study at University. Bani lives in two worlds, his 'woke' student life and his extreme patriarchal, homophobic and misogynistic traditional family life. Written as a letter to his future son, Bani shares his lovelorn tales of love, firstly with a 'Leb chick' called Sahara and his arranged marriage to a woman called Fatima who wants to change her name to 'Chanel'. I deeply enjoyed Bani's visceral language and particularly loved Ahmad's comical insights into the intricacies and codes for arranging an arranged marriage. I squirmed, I laughed out loud, I really enjoyed it! Simon

Description

Any mistakes which brought me to this moment, I would not hesitate to make again. Bani Adam has known all his life what was expected of him. To marry a good girl. To live in a nice home. To have a respectable job. To start a family. In a series of letters to his son Kahlil, Bani recounts each of his adult relationships that lead up to Kahlil's birth. The heartache and the joy. The loves and the losses. The choices made for him, and those that he chooses for himself. The unforgettable new novel from the award-winning author of The Lebs.