Debut Novel Out Now
The shape of dust by lamisse hamouda & hazem hamouda
An incredible true tale of overcoming injustice and ode to the fierce love within one family, The Shape of Dust is a haunting appraisal of the way Australia treats its citizens, both at home and abroad.
In 2018, on his way to a family holiday in Cairo, Australian-Egyptian citizen Hazem Hamouda disappears without warning, going missing somewhere between landing and customs.
His eldest daughter, Lamisse, has recently moved to Egypt armed with a scholarship to the American University of Cairo, and overnight her world is turned upside down. With little Arabic and even less legal knowledge, she finds out her father has been arbitrarily arrested. Going up against the notorious Egyptian prison system, Lamisse discovers that the Australian embassy provides shockingly little support to dual citizens arrested abroad.
Shouldering the responsibility of her father’s welfare, Lamisse learns to navigate both deeply flawed systems, and freeing Hazem involves a reckoning with the two countries she’s called home – coming to terms with the prejudice and racism of the country she grew up in and the corruption in the country she was hoping to reconnect with.
Told with exquisite intimacy by both father and daughter, The Shape of Dust is an Australian story unlike any other, and the striking debut of a writer of incredible nuance, insight and talent.
available at:
BARNES & NOBLE (E-BOOK)
ALL INDEPENDENT BOOKSTORES: Enough Said, Avid Reader, Better Read Than Dead & more.
‘Lamisse Hamouda’s The Shape of Dust is a must read. Full-blooded and clear-eyed, this book is… a ruthlessly reflective examination of the many things that bind us – and free us.”
— Omar Musa, Poet, Illustrator & Author
‘Imbued with hard-earned wisdom, this gripping memoir is as courageous as it is generous.’
— Sara Saleh, Poet, Author & Human Rights Lawyer
‘A socio-political critique with intellectual depth and a beautiful literary quality.’
— Randa Abdel-Fattah, Academic & Author
About Lamisse
Lamisse (she/her) is a youth worker, writer, poet, performer and workshop facilitator. Her first book 'The Shape of Dust' (Pantera Press, 2023) was co-authored with her father, Hazem Hamouda, delving into the experience of being a dual-citizen imprisoned abroad. Lamisse is an experienced workshop facilitator, having run creative writing workshops with QUT's Carumba Institute, Inala Wangarra, the Institute for Collaborative Race Research, Emerging Writer's Festival and Queensland Writer's Centre. Her day job is as a youth worker, where Lamisse specialises in trauma-informed care for Unaccompanied Humanitarian Minors in residential settings. A theatre performer and poet, Lamisse occasionally combines the two through spoken-word poetry; she has featured at Bankstown Poetry Slam and Enough Said! Poetry Slam in NSW. Lamisse credits much of her learning to experience, listening, conversation and Brisbane Free University Radical Reading Group, but she formally holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Sydney in Governance and International Relations.
