Writers in Conversation #3 with Jumaana Abdu
The Institute for Australian and Asian Arts and Culture (IAC), in partnership with the Writing and Society Research Centre (WSRC) at Western Sydney University, are honoured and delighted to present Writers in Conversation #3, featuring Jumaana Abdu, an award-winning and brilliant young Australian writer. The Conversation will be chaired by Professor Jing Han, Director of IAC, with the participation from writing students of WSRC. Topics covered will include how Jumaana has carved out her literary career while continuing her work as a medical doctor; what fuels her literary exploration; and the emergence of new voices that are reshaping contemporary Australian literature. It promises to be an illuminating and engaging event—an opportunity not to be missed.
About the Writer
Jumaana Abdu is a Sydney-based writer and medical doctor by profession. She is an emerging literary voice profoundly shaping contemporary Australian letters. Her debut novel Translations was shortlisted for the Stella Prize, the MUD Literary Prize, and the NSW Premier’s Literary Award. She won the SMH Best Young Novelist in 2025. She has been published in Kill Your Darlings, Westerly, Griffith Review, Meanjin, Liminal, Overland, Debris and New Australian Fiction 2024. Her widely published fiction and essays have garnered critical acclaim, earning her prestigious recognitions such as the Dal Stivens Award, the Patricia Hackett Prize, and the Phoebe Journal fiction prize. Her early literary achievements include winning the UNSW Literary Journal Poetry Prize (2018) and the Western Sydney University Whitlam Institute’s What Matters? overall prize (2013). Her debut novel blends spiritual introspection, cultural nuance, and environmental awareness—earning national acclaim and solidifying her status as one of Australia’s most compelling young writers.
About Translations
Amid a series of personal disasters, Aliyah, a nurse and single mother, and her daughter, Sakina, retreat to rural New South Wales to make a new life. There, Aliyah manages to secure a run-down property and forms intricate emotional bonds with a farmhand, Shep, an extremely private Palestinian man and the region’s imām. During a storm, she drives past the town’s river and happens upon a childhood friend, Hana, who has been living a life of desperation. Tensions rise until all are thrown together for a reckoning while bushfires rage around them.
Critics have praised Translations for its lyrical yet precise prose, its psychological depth, and its powerful exploration of identity, solidarity, and the unspoken. Reviewers describe it as “a poignant exploration of identity, trauma and the intricate dance of human relationships” and a “masterful exploration of the spoken and the unspoken” that “challenges every assumption a reader may hold”.
Translations is a richly layered, atmospheric novel that weaves together personal grief, settler-colonial histories, and diasporic solidarity. Its originality, intellectual rigor, and narrative courage firmly position Jumaana Abdu as a significant new voice in contemporary literature.
Link to purchase the book: https://www.penguin.com.au/books/translations-9781761343872
