The City of Sealions'A rich book-a lyrical account of a girl's growth and self-discovery, and at the same time a deeply sympathetic exploration of Muslim culture.' J.M. Coetzee Lian is a stranger in a strange land, fighting her mother, Phi-Van, from afar. Haunted by her mother's story, Lian has run to the other side of the world, only to discover the true nature of what it means to be an outsider. As she loses herself in the confusing life of Yemen, her new foster mother country, she cannot see that the tyranny of Phi-Van's greater suffering is also her lifeline. But she must break too before she can grow. This is a rich and strange journey under the sea to the place that defines and limits us all. A luminous book about language, identity, culture and family; about a refugee mother who lost them all and a daughter who went to find them. PRAISE FOR HIAM 'A debut that is truly stunning.' Australian Bookseller + Publisher 'Its brilliance, innovation and daring is undeniable.' Australian Book Review 'Sallis drives her story with fine writing, intense imagery and a nimble shuffle between past and present.' The West Australian |
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Common terms and phrases
Abdallah the Fisherman Abdallah the Merman Abha Abha's Allahu Akbar Ammat al-Rahman Arabic arms asked Australian baby balto beautiful began blood blue body breath calm caught chest clothes colours Coonabarabran crooked house dance dived dogs donkey door Dr Qabbani dressed ears EVA SALLIS everything eyes face feel fish girl glittering green hair hands head heart Helena hijab Ibrahim jambiya knew Kobe Koran Land laughed legs Lian's light looked mafraj Mashallah mother mouth mshadda mudbrick Muslim naked Nev's night ocean Phi-Van Rahmana Ramadan realised Red Sea rushed Sanaa sealions shadow shining shoulders silent skin slap slap slowly smiled stared stood story strange street suddenly thought Tihama tiny touch turned voice waiting walked wall wanted watched wave whispered window woman women words Yasmin Yemen Yemeniya young
Popular passages
Page 215 - He pauses again, standing erect, murmuring his prayer — that there is no God but God and Mohammed is his prophet.
Page 83 - A bird, a sparrow, us/our, birds asafiir, seemed to float like yellow butterflies, birds of paradise or coral fish leaping from their glottal first consonant into flight. Dr Qabbani smiled. Lian was entranced. In Arabic there is no relationship between bird and yellow but Lian's first living words bled into each other and yellow coloured many and brought them to life on the wings of imaginary birds. Safara: to travel. She polished each word at first, lovingly, and was rewarded with the slow patina...
Page 80 - She scraped through everything else but by third year was reading laboriously in Arabic and was top of her class. But the words were as discrete as pebbles collected on a beach. She tried to read words, not sentences. Before she even read words she read letters. Jiim was beautiful, especially in isolation. The eye of a fish and the long, curled tail. Ha was his eyeless sister and Kha was Jiim in death.
Page 82 - The first word to ring a bell of its own meaning in her head was asfar or safra, masculine and feminine yellows. For a moment language was incarnated, then it became code again. It was in second year that she saw the first stirrings of life in her oldest nouns. They had lain in her throat and dropped lifeless from her tongue countless times.
Page 82 - She accepted them as a code, learned the decrypting techniques, accepting their disconnection from all feeling. Arabic was cold and lifeless but deeply interesting to dissect. The verbs were vague: weak, seeming at first like cheap string tying bundles together. But then certain knots and clots made nouns. Everything came from...
Page 222 - She was going to have a baby. She was going to be a mother in six short months time.
Page 166 - He wanted to tell her that he loved her and that she was beautiful but that seemed somehow to speak to the other on the ceiling.
Page 26 - That something in her was broken, or not connected, and had been so from her earliest years.
Page 54 - The trick is to enjoy the privilege of being an outsider who knows her way round.
Page 122 - Each had an arsenal of true stories that, as a selection, gave a picture of Yemeni culture and people as the incarnation of cruelty, bigotry, misogyny.