Translations

One of my favourite books this year is a truly astonishing debut, Jumaana Abdu’s Translations, a novel that sits firmly within an established tradition – its protagonist is a city woman, moving to a small town to escape her personal sorrows – but also moves, stylistically, philosophically and narratively, in new and unexpected ways (and is a cracker of a tale as well).

Fiona Wright, The Sydney Morning Herald, Best Books of 2024

Rich language, plenty of humour and emotion ... Jumaana is an undeniable talent and absolutely one to watch. A must read!

Lilly, Better Read Than Dead

Translations is clearly the creation of that rarest thing in Australian literature – an original mind – and Abdu’s enigmatic, delicate and robust storytelling displays literary talent every bit as critically engaged and eloquent as Nam Le’s.

Cameron Woodhead, Fiction Pick of The Week, Sydney Morning Herald

Translations is a bracing, timely, deeply felt novel. Abdu's characters came to haunt my day-to-day thoughts. Her supple, musical sentences feel thrillingly new. This is an assured debut from a writer with masterful control over language.

Jennifer Down

Translations is one of the most deeply considered debuts I have ever read. Here is a writer who is unafraid to delve into the complexities of selfhood and human connection, who looks at the hypocrisy, beauty and crises of our country and times with a calm and curious eye. Jumaana Abdu is extraordinary and I will read everything she writes.

Hannah Kent

Abdu’s is a startling debut: assured and confident, it is written with a deliberateness that never feels heavy, only gentle—as though the book were a garden Abdu was tending. It has been carefully trellised and structured, shaped into a narrative arc whose form is comforting in its familiarity but which surprises with the variety and abundance Abdu has sown. A book that can be inhaled in mere days yet will linger in the reader’s mind much longer.

DŽENANA VUCIC, Kill Your Darlings

The debut novelist Jumaana Abdu is able to capture the specificity of her characters in just a few tender words. We meet no-nonsense Aliyah who escapes a traumatic past to reinvent both her life and a rundown property in rural New South Wales. With her is her young daughter Sakina and a reticent, mysterious hired hand, Shep: a Palestinian man who “asked of others what he wished to be asked of himself: nothing.” As this trio transforms the wilderness around them, Aliyah takes in an old school friend, Hana – and a long-dormant and charged devotion brings the tenuous balance to boiling point.

Steph Harmon, Guardian

I often go searching for the words of Jumaana Abdu. Everything she writes has grace, energy and life. A star and a writer to watch.

Yumna Kassab

Translations is a serious, transcendent novel. Reading it makes you believe in the soul.

Eda Gunaydin

A powerful, character-driven debut. Abdu's writing is tender and deliberate, conveying the most through what is left unsaid and the emotions experienced in each moment.

Marina Sano, Books+Publishing

I can't remember the last time I read something with such a sharp and confident voice, locally or internationally. The world is meticulous and familiar. The characters are so real I can't believe we haven't met.

Hasib Hourani, Books+Publishing

Transcendent of the context it is written in, Translations is a truly powerful story of love, tragedy and devotion that combine in creating a touching, expressive story.

Angus, Spring Reading Guide

The seemingly effortless flow of Jumaana Abdu’s Translations is wonderfully deceptive; beneath their beautiful arrangements, her words are muscular and precise. From the beginning, Abdu sweeps the reader into the story, seats them inside the car with Aliyah and her nine-year-old daughter, Sakina, as they drive away from past tragedies in Sydney towards their new home on a run-down property in rural New South Wales. Translations is an absorbing and deeply moving debut novel from a writer whose name will surely become a regular feature on literary prize lists.

Elke Power, Readings magazine

What’s exquisite about Abdu’s use of language is the simple yet breathtaking precision with which she employs words—it is a feat of immense beauty on the sentence level, both deliberate and overflowing with detail, sentiment and profundity. And yet Translations is never overwritten: Abdu plays with ambiguity and unknowing, peppering her novel with deliberate gaps where readers’ imaginations can flourish.

Sonia Nair, Meanjin

A masterful exploration of the spoken and the unspoken.

Sara M Saleh, Bookseller + Publisher

Aliyah, Sakina, Shep and Hana will stay with me, as well as underlined passages and lines – gifts of wisdom and poetry.

Felicity Plunkett