(For adults)

Join us as Elizabeth Lewis interviews Mohammed Massoud Morsi on his newest book, The Hair of the Pigeon, winner of the Dorothy Hewett Award for best unpublished novel in Australia in 2025.

Told with aching intimacy and poetic force, The Hair of the Pigeon is an epic tale of exile, survival, and indestructible love, tracing a path from the atrocities of the Syrian civil war, across the Mediterranean, to present-day Copenhagen.

More about the book:

Ghassan grows up a free spirit among the constrained lives of the displaced in the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk, Syria. His best friends are Badawi, who is all football, fists and fast-money schemes, and Sama, the girl whose eyes mirror the sky. The ghosts of time, life and death remain hidden, but when the Arab Spring ignites a wave of protest and hope across the region, the drums of war begin to thunder, and devastating secrets rise to the surface.

Sama is the first to disappear. The government’s brutal crackdown against dissent shatters their fragile world. Ghassan vanishes into one of Assad’s notorious prisons, where he is tortured mercilessly and barely survives. When he emerges from the underground, he finds Yarmouk camp under siege, his home in ruins, his mother changed, and his father dying. As fighters and civilians starve in a camp sealed off from the world, the truth of the past unravels.

Books will be available for purchase on the day courtesy of Dymocks Hay Street.

Bookings are essential for this free event. Light refreshments will be available. You are encouraged to bring your own cup for tea/coffee or water.

Please let us know if you have any accessibility requirements.

Please cancel your booking via Humanitix or by contacting the library on 9290 6755 or email gills@mundaring.wa.gov.au if you are unable to attend on the day. Places can then be released for someone else to enjoy.

About the author: Mohammed Massoud Morsi is an Egyptian-Danish-Australian photographer, journalist and writer. His work has been published in all three of his traditional languages. Morsi discovered journalism made people yesterday’s news and turned to writing novels instead. He has a talent for reaching to the heart of existence in a complex world and looks to important questions, finding that which is quintessentially human within much broader struggles. His work is enriched by his photographer’s eye for detail and a passion for speaking out for those suppressed, challenging and breaking common narratives all at once.

Morsi’s fiction and non-fiction have appeared in Australian and international publications. He has authored two novels and five non-fiction books. His 2019 novel, The Palace of Angels, republished in 2026 by UWAP, has been reviewed widely and shortlisted for prestigious Australian literary awards. His latest novel, The Hair of The Pigeon, won the Dorothy Hewett Award for best unpublished novel in Australia in 2025 and has been published in the US and Egypt. Morsi has lived in Europe, Africa and Asia before taking up residence in Australia in 2011. Now a citizen, he continues his writing and lives in Perth with his son, Zaki.

Contact the host of Mohammed Massoud Morsi in Conversation