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Published: 11 February 2025
ISBN: 9781761344558
Imprint: Penguin
Format: Trade Paperback
Pages: 336
RRP: $34.99

Categories:

Half Truth

Nadia Mahjouri

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Boomerang

A daughter searches for her father; a mother for her son. From isolated Tasmania to vibrant Morocco, two women seek the truth about what happened to the same man.

Khadija is packing up her home of fifty years. In her box of special things are the last reminders she has of her son, Ahmed, missing for more than twenty years. Her belongings take her back to her village childhood, her marriage and move to Marrakech.
In Tasmania, Zahra is in the throes of new motherhood and desperate for answers about her own identity. She decides to take her baby to Morocco and search for the father she has never known. There she finds an extensive loving family and a culture ready to embrace her, but no father.

Zahra and Khadija’s stories collide – giving Khadija the power to move on, and Zahra the courage to embrace her identity as a mother and a mixed-race woman, ready to create a fulfilling life for her son and herself.

A moving drama charting families, motherhood and loss, identity and belonging.

Published: 11 February 2025
ISBN: 9781761344558
Imprint: Penguin
Format: Trade Paperback
Pages: 336
RRP: $34.99

Categories:

About the author

Nadia Mahjouri

NADIA MAHJOURI is a Moroccan Australian writer, counsellor, and group facilitator specialising in maternal mental health. Her professional background is in health policy, governance and academia, where her research focused on ethics and feminist philosophy.

Nadia and her husband live in Hobart/nipaluna with varying combinations of their family which includes three young adults, two school-aged children and a black labrador puppy called Russell Sprout.

She is the host of The Whole Truth: Motherhood and the Writing Life. In this podcast, Nadia interviews authors about how they manage to keep writing while living in the messy middle of family life, work and creativity.

Half Truth is her debut novel. You can find her at nadiamahjouri.com or @nadiamahjouriauthor

Praise for Half Truth

Half Truth is an extraordinary book. I was impressed by it from the very opening pages and it was easy to read.
Bri Lee

A remarkable and unforgettable story of love, culture, women and family that traverses generations and continents. Mahjouri has made a unique and beautiful contribution to Australian literature.
Heather Rose

Half tragic, half hopeful, all heart. Australian storytelling in its most truthful form.
Michael Mohammed Ahmad

A gorgeous novel for fans of intergenerational narrative.
Amplify Bookstore

Half Truth shines in its evocation of the environment and atmosphere of its settings and eras. In its characters is an inherent, multifaceted exploration of empire and conquest in Morocco and the multidimensionality of the country’s people and cultures today. Through this all is the heartbeat of womanhood and resilience.
Marina Sano, Bookseller + Publisher

This is an interesting debut, an inter- generational fiction title stemming from the life experiences of author. Nadia is a voice to look out for ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Congrats👍👍👍
Paul's Book Trail 2025, The Children's Bookshop

Half Truth is a wise and beguiling novel which evokes a vivid sense of time and place, though it’s the depth of character and emotional complexity that make it shine. As Mahjouri draws the two women’s perspectives together, a simple but profound answer emerges to the obstacles of grief and identity they face.
Cameron Woodhead, The Age