Parramatta: A Dictionary of Place and Memory

Parramatta: A Dictionary of Place and Memory is a unique meditation on place and memory by Yumna Kassab, the inaugural Parramatta Laureate in Literature. Kassab is a highly regarded author of six works of fiction, and has been shortlisted for several major literary awards.

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 Parramatta Laureate, Yumna Kassab set herself the task of collecting her observations and thoughts on living in the city, now one of the country’s most important economic, political and cultural centres. Employing the dictionary form, the work is at once ‘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 cafés, 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, driven by feeling and admiration and a sense of responsibility, one which, in an unassuming manner, presents an intimate portrait of its compiler.

Expansive and discursive… Parramatta: A Dictionary of Place and Memory is underpinned by a perennial desire to learn, an unquenchable thirst for knowledge and the constant need to deconstruct, translate and decipher.
Sonia Nair, Books+Publishing

A work of psycho-geography: one that explores, delineates and uncovers the city’s landscape and its many layers through the author’s emotions, behaviours and affiliations. Not everything is about Parramatta, but so much is inspired by it.
Sarah Ayoub, Sydney Morning Herald

Dip in and be stimulated, educated and entertained.
Jason Steger, The Booklist

A distant relative of Georges Perec’s An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris and Maria Tumarkin’s Axiomatic… Parramatta insists that a suburb can be the centre of a literary universe. By the last entry, you’ll want to walk its streets.
Nathania Gilson, The Saturday Paper

Wonderfully inventive… I want to read the books [Kassab] mentions, try the coffee shops she mentions. I want to share in her enthusiasm; I want to be prompted to think about the richness our recent migrant history has bestowed upon us.
Nick Mattiske, Insights Magazine