Parramatta

In thinking about the dictionary, I ask what is the dictionary here. It is me and my memories. The dictionary is Parramatta itself as the place that is the backdrop to my memories.

As the inaugural laureate, Yumna Kassab set herself the task of collecting her observations and thoughts on living in Parramatta, now one of the country's most important economic, political, and cultural centres. Employing the dictionary form, the work is at once, as she says, 'memoir and reflection and vision and gathering and story and documentary'.

The entries, from A to Z, cover a wide range of topics, from the uses of language and Kassab's favourite authors and books, to the fortunes (and misfortunes) of the Western Sydney Wanderers; from reflections on beauty, silence, colonisation, and friendship to an appreciation of clouds and sunlight, parks and squares, and the city's cafes, the places where she writes. The entries also offer points of departure, through memory and association, to other places—to Lebanon, Uruguay, and especially to Palestine, whose fate casts a deep shadow over her daily experiences.

It is a personal dictionary in other words, driven by feeling and admiration and a sense of responsibility, one which, in an unassuming manner, presents an intimate portrait of its compiler. As Kassab writes, 'It was my idea that a dictionary could tell the story of a person (me) in connection with a place (Parramatta) with enough flexibility to take in detours, digressions, musings, and general quirkiness.'

Praise for Yumna Kassab:

'Continuously surprising and probing... both personal and expansive; introspective and ambitious.' — Kylie Mirmohamadi

'Stylish and searching writing, with an exquisite command of language holding fast through unstable experimentation with form.' — Sydney Morning Herald

'Kassab has written reworks.' — Guardian

'Kassab's prose is unsparing and frank yet unstinting.' — Sydney Review of Books