Cactus Pear For My Beloved book club questions

In Cactus Pear For My Beloved, Samah Sabawi shares the story of her parents and the many like them. Filled with love for land, history and peoples, it is more than anything else a family story and love story told with enormous humanity and feeling.

From a son being born at the height of displacement to starting a new life in Australia, your book club will be captivated by Samah’s family story.

Discussion points and questions

• Cactus Pear For My Beloved is an unusual memoir in that it does not tell the author’s story. Instead, she shares her father’s life. How did you receive it?
• Should we all show more interest in the stories our parents have to tell? Do you think we might then learn more from history?
• In a review, Marie Claire wrote ‘It is rare to read a story that feels like a privilege to be entrusted with, but Sabawi's recounting of her parents' displacement is just that.’ Did you feel any sense of privilege in learning the story of Abdul Karim Sabawi?
• Why does Abdul Karim, and other migrants too, acquiesce to names that Australians are more comfortable with? What does Samah Sabawi mean when she writes ‘George fits in places Abdul Karim cannot’?
• How much did you know about Palestine before reading Cactus Pear For My Beloved?
• Guided by her baba, a pacifist who aimed to always remain open-hearted and optimistic, the author set out to write a story of love of family and country. Did she succeed?