JEDDAH: Escaping personal strife, a Muslim single mother carves a space for herself in the heart of rural Australia in “Translations,” an engrossing debut novel by Australia-born Palestinian-Egyptian writer Jumaana Abdu.
Set in New South Wales in the period just after the COVID-19 era with the threat of bushfires looming, the novel explores one woman’s efforts to cultivate not only the land but also a sense of belonging and identity on foreign soil.
In this story of self-discovery and resilience, Abdu intricately weaves in the broader theme of solidarity between First Nations of Australia and Palestinians — two nations grappling with colonization, dispossession and cultural erasure.
The novel’s title could be a reference to not just the transformation of the land through re-vegetation and restoration, but also the translations that characters undertake to bridge linguistic, cultural and emotional gaps between them — translation in this sense is portrayed as the language of solidarity and resistance.
Hidden within the trope of new beginnings in a small town, Abdu paints a powerful picture of mutual recognition and respect, of shared struggles, and the healing potential of intercultural bonds.
This is unveiled through Aliyah’s interactions with the community into which she slowly, and sometimes reluctantly, begins to integrate, including her conversations with Shep, the reserved Palestinian man from Gaza who she hires as a farmhand, and Billie, the wise and nurturing Kamilaroi midwife.
Love and faith are also focal elements in the story. Love in its many forms — romantic, familial, and communal — acts as a balm to past wounds for the Arab and Aboriginal characters, while faith, both in the divine and in human resilience, guides Aliyah, and her childhood friend Hana, through despair toward hope.
“Translations” is a profound exploration of not just the complex interplay between identity and trauma, but also a look at how love can bridge divides, and how shared histories of resistance can unite different peoples in their quest for peace and understanding.
In one pivotal moment in the story that carries a deep message, Shep discusses displacement and the “chain of loss and expulsion” with Billie’s husband Jack, an Aboriginal character, who poignantly says: “You want to wish for something, wish for the return of the land’s dignity.”
