Find Me at the Jaffa Gate: An Encyclopaedia of a Palestinian Family (Micaela Sahhar, NewSouth)
Several generations into the Palestinian diaspora in Australia, Micaela Sahhar explores the complexities of being disconnected from her ancestral land in Find Me at the Jaffa Gate: An Encyclopaedia of a Palestinian Family. Sahhar equates her loss of a homeland to a ‘yawning chasm’, and this void is where she begins her writing journey. The book consists of 48 entries blending personal and public histories of Sahhar’s family and Palestine, culminating in the 1948 Nakba that led to her family’s exile to Melbourne. Although the entries are numbered sequentially, they are not arranged thematically or chronologically. The reader moves between a pre-occupation Palestine, 1950s Melbourne and the US in the early 2010s, all while remaining anchored in the present. This structure mirrors the oral storytelling tradition, passing ancestral knowledge across generations. It also immerses the reader in Sahhar’s process of gathering knowledge and stories to make sense of her family’s history and the broader Palestinian experience. In her prologue, Sahhar writes of ‘stitch[ing] the fragments I have’, and the book reflects this approach – blending family vignettes, comprehensive research, and a detailed notes and references section. Find Me at the Jaffa Gate is more than a lyrical memoir that binds personal storytelling with global history; Sahhar has built an archive for future generations. Readers interested in tales of migration and ancestral history will find a treasure trove in Sahhar’s emotive and detailed offering.
Books+Publishing reviewer: Hellai Gul (she/they) is a literary critic, writer and poet living and working on sovereign Burramattagal and Gadigal lands. She is passionate about diverse voices in contemporary Australian writing and is currently curating poems for a collection. Books+Publishing is Australia’s number-one source of pre-publication book reviews.
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Category: Friday Unlocked reviews Reviews
