Samia Khatun

A young doctoral candidate of South Asian origin doing research for her degree discovers what was thought to be a copy of the Q’ran in a old thatch roofed mosque in Broken Hill in the boonies of Australia. The book was a copy of Sufi Bengali poetry the “ Kasasol Ambia”. How it got there, led to questions and discoveries of the South Asian migration in and out of Austrailia as merchants and camel drivers, the rise of Australian white nationalism, the submersion of the Arborgines and their story from the landscape. South Asian and Aboriginal stories do not follow the traditional linear pattern of european history. These other traditions offer their participants a way of relating their experiences, dangers and dreams to those who care to hear. Samia helps us to understand that Austrialia was not just a collection of blank (white) spaces to be filled in by successive generations of white colonists. She invites us to a new vision of literature and story telling that reaches out to the dreamers of the Arabunna or the classic Persian poets of the past. This book is a refreshing encounter with sub-rosa history that needs to be told.… (meer)