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Coming of Age: Growing up Muslim in Australia is a timely new book that explores the diversity within the many Muslim communities around Australia, through the personal stories of Muslim Australians – boxers, lawyers and authors amongst them.
Tasneem Chopra is chair of the Australian Women’s Centre for Human Rights and one of Melbourne’s most influential women. Irfan Yusuf is a commentator and author of Once Were Radicals: My Years As A Teenage Islamo-fascist. Together they examine the worlds of sport, sex, religion, humour and society, as seen through an Islamic prism.
A good event starts great conversations. Here’s your chance to stay back a while and meet the guest speakers. Nibbles provided. Soft drinks available.
Who?
Irfan Yusuf
Irfan Yusuf is a lawyer and commentator who writes on national security, cultural diversity and conservative politics. He has been published in Crikey, The Canberra Times, The Drum, and the Australian among others. He has appeared on The Project and RN's God Forbid!
Demet Divaroren
Demet Divaroren was born in Adana, Turkey and migrated to Australia with her family when she was six months old. She writes fiction and non-fiction and her writing has appeared in Island magazine, Scribe’s New Australian Stories, the Age Epicure, The Big Issue, and was commended in the Ada Cambridge Biographical Prose Prize 2013.
Tasneem Chopra
A cross-cultural consultant, Tasneem addresses leadership, cultural competence and intersectionality across private and public spheres. For her efforts she was recently appointed the inaugural Ambassador for Women of Colour, Australia - and in 2020, awarded an OAM.
Tasneem has been named an ‘Anti-Racism Champion’ by the Australian Human Rights Commission and holds a Distinguished Alumni Award from La Trobe University in recognition of her impact in the diversity sector.
She is a Board Director for The Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI), the Crescent Institute as well as a Strategic advisor for Fire Rescue Victoria and the Collingwood Football Expert Panel on Anti-Racism.
A TEDxMelbourne presenter and writer, Tasneem has featured in SBS Life, The Guardian, the SMH and appeared on BBC’s IQ2 Debates, Q&A and is a regular panelist on The Drum.
Alyena Mohummadally
Alyena Mohummadally is a Pakistani-Australian queer Muslim woman who spent many years as a community legal centre lawyer before recently retraining as a primary school teacher.
She is currently writing a cookbook on modern Australian cuisine with a Pakistani twist, and her two young sons are her favourite people to cook for.
Amra Pajalic
Amra Pajalic is an award winning author, an editor and teacher. Her debut novel The Good Daughter (Text Publishing) won the 2009 Melbourne Prize for Literature's Civic Choice Award, and was also shortlisted in the Victorian Premier’s Awards for an Unpublished Manuscript by an Emerging Writer.
She is also author of a novel for children Amir: Friend on Loan (Garratt Publishing, 2014) and is co-editor of the anthology Coming of Age: Growing up Muslim in Australia (Allen and Unwin, 2014) – shortlisted for the 2015 Children's Book Council of Australia Awards. She is funded by Arts Victoria to develop her memoir Things Nobody Knows But Me.
