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‘I have no interest in the white gaze any more’: Randa Abdel-Fattah on Gaza, boycotts and her new novel

Discipline follows a journalist and an academic navigating censorship in the wake of Israel’s war on Gaza – an issue the author is no stranger to herselfGet our weekend culture and lifestyle emailIn 2021, when Randa Abdel-Fattah began working on her latest novel, Discipline, she questioned whether a story about state violence, the right to protest and the racialisation of Arab youth in Australia would resonate.Suspicion of Arab communities – particularly young Muslim men – in media and political commentary had been potent in the years after 9/11 and had formed the subject of her academic research (and her 2022 nonfiction book Coming of Age in the War on Terror) – but, she says, the issue seemed to have “fallen off the radar”. She wondered whether people still thought it was a problem deserving of attention, and even emailed her publisher in September 2023 to ask if it believed there was a market for the novel.Sign up for our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning Continue reading...

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