Muslim authors redefine Muslim identities at Sydney Writers’ Festival 2025

Sydney Writers’ Festival, held from Monday 19 May to Sunday 25 May 2025, swept through Carriageworks and venues across Sydney, drawing thousands into a vibrant celebration of words, voices, and stories.

Among the festival’s diverse constellation of writers and poets, Muslim authors carved out space to challenge and redefine what it means to be Muslim in Australia today.

Writers, poets, and artists from diverse backgrounds enriched the Sydney Writers’ Festival with powerful explorations of migration, First Nations perspectives, and contested mediated realities.

The works of authors such as Sara M Saleh, Zainab Syed, Yumna Kassab, Hasib Hourani, and Sara Haddad drew significant attention.

Authors with Muslim and diverse cultural backgrounds offered bold, intimate, and richly layered storytelling that disrupted tired narratives and invited audiences to see Muslim identities as complex, evolving, and inseparable from the story of contemporary Australia.

Another major attraction was Family Day on Sunday May 25, 2025, a celebration dedicated to children and their futures, where storytelling and creativity became tools for shaping the next generation’s understanding of diversity, belonging, and community. This article offers a review of these events.

Ritual: a new poetry anthology by celebrated Muslim Australian authors

The atmosphere inside Carriageworks on Sunday 25 May 2025 was charged with a quiet intensity.

As the audience settled into their seats, three women approached the stage with a deliberate, almost reverent calm. This session at the Sydney Writers’ Festival was more than a literary event; it became a moment of collective reflection.

The focus was on Ritual, a new poetry anthology that brings together the voices of Muslim authors across Australia.

The conversation unfolded in an intimate exchange between facilitator Winnie Dunn and the book’s editors, Sara M Saleh, a Palestinian-Egyptian-Lebanese Australian writer, poet, and human rights lawyer, and Zainab Syed, a Pakistani-Australian poet, producer, and educator.

Interspersed between their dialogue were powerful readings from poets whose works were featured in the collection.

Ritual was never meant to be a conventional anthology.

Rather than relying on open submissions, Saleh and Syed built the project through a dedicated retreat and sustained community-building, with contributions shaped by cultural solidarity, including guidance from Muslim First Nations writer Eugenia Flynn and mentorship from a U.S.-based Muslim poet.

But as the project evolved, the world changed.

In the midst of their work, the Hamas attacks on Israel and the subsequent bombardment of Gaza unfolded, reframing the context in which the anthology was being written.

Zainab Syed was in Pakistan when the conflict over Kashmir ignited, a time heavy with uncertainty and grief. Yet, in the face of darkness, Syed refused to surrender to despair.

On stage, she reminded the audience that even Rumi, the great Sufi poet, wrote in the shadow of immense violence. His verses, she suggested, can be read as acts of quiet resistance, a protest against forgetting.

“Poetry, as ritual, as prayer, as inheritance,” Syed said, “can stand as a sovereign record of our whole selves.”

In her voice, there was both defiance and reverence, the belief that poetry holds the power not just to witness history, but to protect what might otherwise be lost.

The poets read from their work, each voice distinct, each narrative layered with personal and political resonance. The readings captured the multiplicity of Muslim identities in Australia, identities that resist simplification.

As the audience left Carriageworks, it was clear that what had transpired was more than literature. It was testimony.

At The Books of Everything, Muslim Authors Reclaim Stories and Space in Western Sydney

On the evening of Saturday 24 May 2025, the airy halls of PHIVE in Parramatta transformed into a site of thoughtful provocation and intimate storytelling.

The Sydney Writers’ Festival session, The Books of Everything, was not simply a conversation about literature; it became a reflection on existence, belonging, and the power of narrative to reshape how we see ourselves and each other.

Yumna Kassab, Parramatta’s inaugural Laureate of Literature, joined Sarah in conversation with Felicity Castagna, inviting the audience into an exploration that blurred the boundaries between form, politics, and personal history.

Kassab, the acclaimed author of The House of Youssef, Australiana, The Lovers, and her latest work Politica, brought a voice deeply rooted in the streets of Western Sydney but expansive in its reach.

Politica, which she describes as an imaginary history of the Arab world or a feminine retelling of politics, challenges conventional historical narratives and amplifies stories often left untold.

For Fatima, an attendee whose parents migrated from Pakistan, the session resonated on a profoundly personal level.

“When you come to such places and listen to the talk of these amazing authors with Muslim migrant backgrounds,” she shared, “you realise that our identities as Muslims are not what some movies and media reports portray us to be. We are contributing to our new and vibrant home, Australia. As a third-culture kid, I am proud of both my roots and my current home.”

Fatima’s reflections echoed a quiet sentiment threading through the session, that Muslim identities in Australia are not monolithic, nor are they confined to the reductive images often seen in mainstream media.

For her, authors like Kassab embody the resilience and richness of migrant stories, offering not just counter-narratives but authentic expressions of life, achievement, and complexity within Sydney’s cultural fabric.

Hidden Beginnings: Amplifying Marginalised Voices at Sydney Writers’ Festival

Hidden Beginnings, held on Saturday 24 May 2025 at Parramatta Artists Studios in Granville, was a storytelling event at the Sydney Writers’ Festival.

Organised in collaboration with the City of Parramatta and Western Sydney University, it focused on voices from communities often excluded from mainstream narratives.

Among them were authors of Muslim background, whose contributions added significant depth to the evening’s exploration of identity, belonging, and new beginnings.

Hasib Hourani, a Lebanese-Palestinian writer and educator, and Sara Haddad, Lebanese-Australian writer, brought their distinctive perspectives to the stage, weaving stories of resilience and cultural memory.

Their work powerfully expanded the conversation on what it means to live, write, and create in contemporary Australia.

Alongside them, writers Hayley Scrivenor, Lucia Tường Vy Nguyễn, Morgan Hogg, Jazz Money, and Claire Cao created an inclusive space where diverse histories and diasporic experiences could converge through art and literature.

Family Day at Sydney Writers’ Festival: Celebrating Stories with the Next Generation

Carriageworks transformed into a vibrant playground of imagination as Family Day unfolded in full colour at the Sydney Writers’ Festival on Sunday 25 May 2025.

The venue buzzed with the laughter of children and the cheerful hum of families from every corner of Sydney, reflecting the city’s rich multicultural fabric.

It was a day when the magic of storytelling took centre stage, captivating kids of all ages through art, literature, and live performances.

Children wandered between storytelling sessions, creative arts stations, a mobile library, and the excitement of live animals from 10am to 4pm. Among the highlights was The Hot Mess Show with Jeff Kinney, the globally adored author of Diary of a Wimpy Kid, whose lively onstage antics had the young audience roaring with laughter.

Kylie Howarth brought her picture books Bush Magic and Koalas Stole My Undies to life in a joyful story time session, while Jacqueline Harvey enchanted children with tales from her beloved Alice-Miranda and Willa and Woof series.

Middle-grade readers were swept into Greek Myths Retold by R A Spratt and David Conley, and the Epic Illustrator Battle left the crowd amazed by the artistic talents of some of Australia’s top illustrators. Youth enjoyed all the sessions and took deep interest in books.

Sarah Kareem, a Muslim migrant mother attending with her 12-year-old daughter, shared a thoughtful reflection.

“No doubt, I enjoyed the sessions; it was a day full of fun and wonderful activities,” she said. “But I couldn’t help noticing that within the Muslim community, we don’t focus on art, literature, or storytelling as much as we should. We’re often more focused on finance or material success. If we invest in our children’s education and encourage creative growth, we could see far more than just five or six Muslim names in Australia’s literary landscape. It’s time we focus on building that future”.