Eva Sallis
Eva Sallis was born in Bendigo, Victoria in 1964. She is a writer of literary fiction and criticism. Many of her works explore ideas on culture, exile and belonging. Her first novel Hiam won The Australian/Vogel Literary Award for 1997, the Nita May Dobbie Literary Award and was shortlisted for the Courier-Mail Book of the Year 1999 and the National Fiction Award 2000.
She has studied Arabic intensively for seven years and travels regularly to the Middle East, particularly Yemen and Lebanon. She is working on translating stories from the Yemeni writer Abd al-Kareem al-Razihi, and has published two of these in the literary journal Heat in 2005.
Her latest work of fiction is The Marsh Birds, set in Iraq, Syria, Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand, won the Asher Literary Award 2005 and was shortlisted for The Age Book of the Year 2005; NSW Premier's Literary Awards, Christina Stead Prize for Fiction 2006; National Fiction Award, Festival Awards for Literature 2006; and the Commonwealth Writers Prize, Best Book South East Asia and Pacific Region 2006.
Website: http://www.evasallis.com
Books by Eva Sallis
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The City of Sealions
A beautifully crafted novel of self discovery - it is through Lian's confronting loss of identity in a foreign culture that she is able to find compassion for her Vietnamese mother's difficult life and an understanding of their unforgiving relationship.
Set in Yemen and on a small island off the coast of Australia, The City of Sealions explores ideas about community and belonging and loss.
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Fire Fire
The Houdini family escape from the great world to a dilapidated and isolated residence in the bush near the fictional town of Toggenberg, where Acantia Houdini the artist hopes her seven children and famous violist husband can become self-sufficient as artists, musicians and poets. All is not, however, home grown spinach and classical music. The children become increasingly feral; Acantia more and more eccentric; and the isolated family is befriended by the languid, honey-voiced and furry-eared Count Ugolini who has an eye for teenagers of either sex.
A story rich in music, art, poetry built on a central theme of the escape from the explosive nuclear family.
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Hiam
Hiam is a journey through a psychic and geographic landscape, a journey through disintegration and loss. Hiam abandons Adelaide to unravel her life and memories on the road north after her family and identity have been destroyed.
On one level this is a story of a migrant’s experience in a strange land, a story drawing on the pressures, fragilities and strengths of exiled communities. It is also a story of universal human grief, individual courage and the will, not only to survive, but to live fully in the world.
Winner Australian Vogel Award 1997
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Winner Dobbie Literary Awards 1999
Shortlisted Kibble Award, 1999
Shortlisted National Fiction Award
Shortlisted The Courier Mail Book of the Year -
Mahjar
Mahjar is about lives, journeys and stories, about exile and the experiences that push people to new homelands. Through interwoven stories and fables, it evokes Australia’s intimate connection with the Middle East.
Winner Steele Rudd Literary Award, 2004
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Shortlisted Federation of Australian Writers Christina Stead Award, 2004 -
The Marsh Birds
This is the story of Dhurgham, a young Iraqi who has lost everything. A powerful, exquisitely written novel that gives a human face to the experiences of exile and migration.
Winner Asher Literary Award 2005
Details
Shortlisted The Age Book of the Year 2005
Shortlisted NSW Premier's Literary Awards 2005
Shortlisted Christina Stead Prize for Fiction 2006
Shortlisted National Fiction Award
Shortlisted Commonwealth Writer's Prize - SE Asia & Pacific Region