BMI Members Christmas Party with the Ballarat Singers
2023-12-11 17:30 - 19:30 (Australia/Melbourne) | BMI – Humffray Room, 117-119 Sturt Street, Ballarat Central, VIC, 3350, Australia
Stella Day Out Ballarat | Samah Sabawi ‘Cactus Pear For My Beloved’ in conversation with Fatima Measham

November 5

@

7:15 pm

-

8:00 pm

Free

Minerva Space

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Stella Day Out is a free one-day literary festival that celebrates and promotes the outstanding contributions of women and non-binary writers to Australian literature.

Cactus Pear for my Beloved: A Family Story from Gaza by Samah Sabawi

In conversation

2025 Stella shortlisted author Samah Sabawi is joined by Fatima Measham to discuss art, activism, and storytelling that crosses borders – of place, politics, and the heart.

Cactus Pear for my Beloved: A Family Story From Gaza

The story of a family over the past 100 years, starting in Palestine under British rule and ending in Redland Bay in Queensland. Samah Sabawi shares the story of her parents and many like them who were born as their parents were being forced to leave their homelands. Filled with love for land, history, peoples it is more than anything else a family story and a love story told with enormous humanity and feeling. How the son (one of six), born at the height of the displacements to a disabled father and illiterate mother, a believer in peaceful resistance, became a leading poet and writer in Palestine, before being forced, with his own young family in tow, to flee and start a new life in Australia. One of the gifts of Samah Sabawi’s Baba is to remain open-hearted and optimistic.

Cactus Pear for my Beloved | Samah Sabawi

Dr. Samah Sabawi, Author | Photo: Andrew Campbell

Author Dr. Samah Sabawi

Dr Samah Sabawi is an award-winning Palestinian playwright, poet, scholar, and political commentator whose work weaves art and resistance into powerful expressions of identity, memory, and hope. Sabawi’s most recent book Cactus Pear for My Beloved: A Gaza family story (Penguin 2024), is a searing memoire exploring love, exile, and the enduring scars of dispossession. The book chronicles her family’s journey across a century—from British Mandate Palestine through the Nakba and exile to Queensland. The book has earned critical acclaim, was shortlisted for the 2025 Stella Prize, The Age Book of the Year, and the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards’ Douglas Stewart Prize for Non fiction; it was also highly commended by the Victoria Premier’s Literary Awards and long listed for the Palestine Book Awards. Sabawi’s plays Tales of a City by the Sea (La Mamma 2014 – Currency Press 2016) and Them (La Mamma 2019 – Currency Press 2020) both won multiple awards, were staged to critical acclaim in theatres across Australia, Canada, and the Middle East, and continue to be widely studied and celebrated for their lyrical storytelling and uncompromising political depth. In 2016, Sabawi co-edited with Stephen Orlov the anthology Double Exposure: Plays of the Jewish and Palestinian Diasporas (Playwrights Canada Press 2016). This groundbreaking anthology is the first English-language collection bringing together plays by Jewish and Palestinian writers, accompanied by interviews offering insight into the challenges of writing and staging stories centred on justice for Palestine. the book received the Biennial Patrick O’Neill Award. In the realm of poetry, Sabawi co-authored I Remember My Name – Poetry by Samah Sabawi, Ramzy Baroud and Jehan Bseiso (Novum Publishing 2016). This powerful trio of Palestinian poets––inspired by exile and resistance––offers deeply personal and politically charged reflections on identity, displacement, and hope. Sabawi’s poems employ sharp satire and emotional resonance—calling out injustice and giving voice to resilience. The anthology received the 2016 Palestine Book Award for its lyrical, urgent storytelling Beyond the page and stage, Sabawi is a respected media commentator and public speaker and a passionate advocate for justice and human rights. She is co-founder and Board Director of Palestine Australia Relief and Action (PARA), supporting Palestinians, especially Gaza genocide survivors in Australia. Dr Sabawi received a Master of Communications from Griffith University and a PhD from Victoria University.

Samah will be in conversation with Fatima Measham

Fatima Measham, Author

Author Fatima Measham

Fatima Measham is a nature writer with a visual practice focused on environmental justice. Her essays and images deal with the incompatibilities and dualities inherent in our relationship with history. Her perspective is drawn from Catholic liberation theory, Filipino revolutionary history, and the settler-migrant experience. She is a co-founder of Wyndham for Palestine, and was part of the organising alliance behind We Vote For Palestine and Solidarity Cup for Palestine.

We are proud to be hosting this series at the BMI.

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This event will be supported by Collins Booksellers on Lydiard

Cost Free – Tickets can also be reserved at the Library Box Office.

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This event takes place on Wadawurrung Country. Ballaarat Mechanics’ Institute acknowledges the Wadawurrung People of the Kulin Nation as the first inhabitants and Traditional Custodians of the lands where we work, learn and create. Always Was, Always Will Be, Aboriginal Land.

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