Politica

by Yumna Kassab

‘Like an impressionist painter, Kassab uses words like brushstrokes to build a vivid picture of intertwined lives set against the continuing drumbeat of war. The narrative moves between past, present and future and uses time as an effective device to illustrate how the effects of war linger long after its cessation.’ – Books and PublishingA captivating literary journey that delves into the intertwined lives of a town, its people, and a region shaped by revolution and war. The war broke out and she decided to call her dad. Weeks and weeks they do not speak, and the weeks become months and then they are so many years. She imagines herself starting this story. She imagines how she will tell this story later to someone else.We hadn't spoken for years but then the war broke out... As conflict plays out across an unnamed region, its inhabitants deal with the fallout. Families are torn apart and brought together. A divide grows between those on either side of the war, compromises are struck as the toll of violence impacts near and far. We learn about those who are left behind and those who choose to leave in a great scattering. As the stories of those affected play out, they weave together to show the whole of a society in the most extreme of circumstances. Even after the last shot is fired, their world will never recover. From the acclaimed author of The House of Youssef, Australiana and The Lovers comes a powerful new novel that asks again if it’s possible to ever measure the personal cost of war.

Genres: Fiction, War, Literary Fiction

255 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 3, 2024

About the author

Yumna Kassab was born and raised in Western Sydney. She completed most of her schooling in Parramatta, except for two formative years when she lived in Lebanon with her family. She went on to study medical science at Macquarie University and neuroscience at Sydney University. She currently teaches in regional New South Wales.

Reviews

[ReaderSP · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was the latest book sent to me by my online book club, WellRead. I had never heard of Yumna Kassab before so I was looking forward to exploring a new author.

The book immerses us in an unnamed country during a time of war. We witness revolution and retaliation, bombings and disappearances, conflict and danger and we see this take over the everyday lives of the people that live there. This landscape is presented to us through a series of threaded stories, a collection of thoughts from various people impacted by the situation.

This was not a style of writing that I liked at all. I thought I would get used to it as I progressed through the book but I didn’t. The chapters are short and sharp and the writing is wonderful but I could not adapt to the changing flow and pace. I never felt like I got to know any of the characters and I hated being ripped away from them so soon. Maybe this is just a demonstration of how war works but it wasn’t how I like to read.

Overall, beautiful language and descriptive text but I didn’t like the writing style.

[matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars - thank you Ultimo Press for the advanced review copy! 🫶🏼

Kassab’s poetic prose is gorgeous and the very short chapters give you a fragmented view of life in this unnamed region for those who inhabit it. You’re given breadcrumbs of story and information, and are left to piece it all together. The first two parts were the strongest, I feel.

[Kwt · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think this book could've been written better. I like how it was a collection of people's experiences during and after war, how much it affects them, and how it never really leaves them. Some parts were very impactful and devastating. It truly reflects today's political environment and reminds us of what people go through. I just wished this book was more organised to enjoy it fully.

[Cara · Rating 2 out of 5]

Heavy subject matter. Could not cope with the disjointed structure.

[The Honest Book Reviewer · Rating 2 out of 5]

I understand what this book is trying to do, but the fragmented structure works against it. Each piece feels like a snippet of a larger story. It's like reading a short news article and being stopped by a paywall before you reach the heart of it.

The fragments might be meant to reflect life in a war-torn country. The chaos, the disconnection. But for me it just made the book feel incomplete. There’s not enough space to flesh out characters or give weight to their experiences.

And what the results is this should book should be charged with emotion. It's about the impacts of conflict on not just a country but the people. It should be saturated with emotion and atmosphere. It’s surprisingly detached. The intent is clear, but the delivery left me cold and failed to make characters engaging and compelling.

Effort and ambition are good and well, but effort alone doesn’t make a book work. This one didn’t land for me.

[Ali · Rating 4 out of 5]

"She was not the same and it was not the hand of time or how she was now bent when once she had stood ever so straight. No, the change in her was different.
Once there had been promise and now she was grateful for the pittance the universe continued to provide."

Kassab writes stories of entire communities, not individuals, and her scope seems expanding. From the story of a family in House of Yussuf, to a town in Australiana, to the interlinked communities in two countries of the Lovers. In Politica, however, Kassab takes on the impact of a war across a whole society over four decades. Starting with a group at the heart of the origins, the conflict reverberates through Kassab's vignettes and threads across a country that feels awfully like Lebanon*, but could be anywhere.
This kind of writing won't be for everyone. It can be mentally taxing to keep track of the interconnections for a middle-aged brain at the end of a long work day. At one level, you don't have to; each vignette can stand alone, but the impact of the whole is lessened if you don't. Kassab isn't a dramatic writer - there is no graphic violence, for example - but she builds impact through the quiet moments and the understanding of how everyone, through this fabric, is changed.
Change is at the heart of this book. Over the span of time covered, we see how individuals, families, and villages are altered. Perspectives and people change.
The polyphonic approach also forces constant shifts of perspective, a panoptic view, if that didn't have sinister connotations. Kassab often introduces us to the doubt-ridden interior lives of heroes, which undercuts their use as symbols by others.
Much here is a lament, but it is still less than that that celebrates the resilience of connection and community. Communities certainly fail their members; not everyone is ever saved, and Kassab writes of those who are lost. But still, she shows us, the fabric endures because there is nothing of life without it.

*There are some distinct nods, which could distract, but also elevate. This is a universal story, but it is not a hypothetical one. Sometimes a trace of specificity is a reminder that this is more than an exercise in empathy.

[nina.reads.books · Rating 4 out of 5]

Politica is the most recent book by Yumna Kassab. Her last novel, The Lovers, was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award. I had never read her work before so I was delighted to receive a copy from @ultimopress.

The concept of Politica is that there is a war on in an unnamed country although there are very strong hints that we are in the Middle East. Nothing is explicitly stated though. It is delivered in a unique structure split in parts with each taking a different tone.

The first part focuses on a young man who joins the rebellion against the wishes of his father. The next part looks at the leader of the rebellion and his family. Then we experience a part using the voice of a spirit that lives in a well recounting stories of those who visit it. In the part titled 1973 each chapter is very short only a page or two and they are mostly from the POV of Salma. These were vignette like, snippets of life that tells a bigger story.

While seemingly disconnected and disjointed there is an underlying theme of the effects of war and conflict on families and a wider society. Families and friends break and come back together. There are those that stay and those that leave. The bleakness of war. The hesitant hopefulness when it seems as though there may be peace. The words leave you with impressions and feelings rather than following a linear plot.

I really enjoy books that take risks with narrative structure and here I think the author has been quite effective in leaving the reader with a sense of the futility and impact of war and conflict without having to describe events and characters in a more realist way.

This is definitely a timely work given the current state of the world. I'd recommend giving it a go and I'll definitely be looking out for the author’s earlier books now too.

Huge thanks to @ultimopress for my #gifted copy.

[Isobel Schofield · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was challenging to begin with, but once I gave into the idea of there being no plot, and its purpose being not for me to follow along, but rather allowing me a glimpse into lives (past, present and future) and how they were affected by war. Not about politics, but about livelihood, and how experiences in conflict stay with people in many different forms.

[Ruby Jensen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Absolutely haunting.

I tend to stay out of the news for the sake of my mental well being and although this novel named no specific places or wars you just know that there is truth here. Absolutely beautiful but yes, haunting.

[Afia · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit heavy, a bit real (defs very real), Lowkey lost the plot but I adore Kassab’s lyrical writing style, especially after The Lovers

[Theresa Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Politica by Yumna Kassab is a powerful novel about life in a war-torn region. Specifically, through its fragmented pieces of perspective, it focuses on the individual. This is a complex novel, more a series of vignettes than a cohesive story, but it was all the more impacting through the use of this style.

There were times throughout when I was moved to tears, others when I felt overcome by a sense of shock and disbelief. Life is so different for so many people, and I have once again been reminded about how blessed I am. The cost of living might be nipping at my heels right now, but I have feeedom, a job, a house, and a sense of security that none of that will change. I have never had to worry about bombs, never had to contemplate fleeing my homeland, nor have I had one of my children die in my arms from a bullet wound, caught in a crossfire while walking to the shops, immortalised forever as a consequence of war.

Yumna Kassib is a brilliant writer. This wasn't an easy read, but it was definitely a worthwhile one.

Thanks to Ultimo Press for the review copy.

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

2025 Miles Franklin Longlist

Rating 3.5
I enjoyed this work more than the author's previous ones.
There's a sense of heart and power in the stories that I think has been missing in some of her previous work, despite the fact that she is a very good writer.
As I became familiar with the material the stories left more of an impact.
Her best work to-date IMHO
A worthy addition to the longlist and a great short audiobook.

[afarian · Rating 5 out of 5]

I went into this blind (didn't read the synopses, lol) - didn't realise it was a Gaza parallel.

[issy 🌞 · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this!
I adored the writing style and quick glimpses into the lives of the characters, it gave such an emotive and jarring image of what their lives and communities were like. If you like storytelling & poetry and want something that’s not necessarily a traditional novel you’ll love this!

I am so keen to read others by this author, and so happy to have found an Aussie author who’s stuff I loved this much.


Spoilers?/fav bits
- father and daughter died as revolutionaries but the shared figure, the mother, who tied them together is to take a third of the blame. Such a great concept and insight into what revolution can do for families.
- “sometimes she thought to release him like a stray dog because god takes greater care of the simple than the smart” is such a beautiful and haunting image that is often neglected in stories of war - how do those who need need care even outside of wartimes fit into war torn communities?
- the story of Soosoo’s marriage
-the images of feminism and infantilisation of women throughout are haunting but especially “imagine a girl putting a long, rounded thing between her lips and thinking only of music” in relation to the flute.
- fav story was The Words in which a granddaughter and her illiterate grandfather traverse their relationship “he sees writing as a magic”.

[Natasha (jouljet) · Rating 4 out of 5]

In an unnamed country, revolution and retaliation, bombings and disappearances, conflict and danger take over the everyday. The oppressive daily struggles of survival, alongside the fear of loss, and the regular routines of life impacted in unimaginable ways.

Threaded stories, almost vignettes, form a community of people living their lives, lives like ours, with hopes and dreams, and chores. Amid terror and uncertainty, grief and the unknown.

A very timely read, and surely a contender for the Stella Prize longlist this year. There are some very powerful lines in here, that stop you in your tracks, given the current state of the world.

[Tracy Cufone · Rating 1 out of 5]

I truly struggled with this book. The short punchy chapters seemed to cause an element of unimportance. As a reader I just seemed to feel the chapters were delivered with an element blasé and consequently did not touch my soul. As a reader there was no means to connect with the characters. This may of been the author’s intention to demonstrate how desensitised we have become to the atrocities, however in my case this back fired. I would have sooner felt empathy, compassion and outrage if I felt a connection to a character or characters. This book was like wading through mud and I was grateful when it came to an end.

[Linda Quatermass · Rating 3 out of 5]

By rights I shouldn’t have liked this book. I’m not a fan of short stories and this is more a collection of thoughts, tales, passages, vignettes about the effects of war. So not up my alley. At all. And yet it has a mesmerising effect. Not set in any particular country or any singular conflict the overall impact is of how fracturing war is on the lives of everyone affected.

I still prefer traditional storytelling and dialogue and character development. But this was powerful.

[Marles Henry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yumna Kassab’s novel, Politic is a book that paints a picture of an un-named land in the Middle East. This area is directly impacted by war and violence, and how these events main and affect the lives of those who live through it and fight through it. This is not a linear story, as it moves between the past, present and future, heightening the feeling of how life goes on throughout a war, and is maimed in so many ways with often no recovery on the other side. It is written in prose, yet some parts feel like poetry, full of feeling and emotion, with a gracefulness that is such a contrast to war.
“Once they have burned our books, once our language has been buried underground, once our culture is of the fiction past, then it will be too easy for them to say: did they even exist?”
The impact of war is primarily on one family: a mother, father and a daughter. The father seems to have such intensity about war, that it is almost at odds of his wife’s necessity and drive to keep her family together and alive.
We also watch all of this fall out through the eyes of the daughter who is a little naïve and falls for this romanticised of war on the modern world, only to be let down by what unfolds around her. This is where the book starts to illustrate life in war: the hardships, struggles, going without, the continuing disparity between men and women, that there is love in the harshest of times. There is a lot of reflection on the past and present, and a yearning for the future to be a space where they are all freed of thee past.
At the beginning of a new year, this is a message I take the following from Kassab’s writing: “You come in peace and you will find here an even greater peace. Face the world with the face you wish to receive”.


Thank you @ultimopress for the #gifted copy.

[ameliastacey · Rating 3 out of 5]

i really tried to just vibe my way through this and accept i was just being fed small vignettes of life during an unnamed war, but ultimately it was a little bit of a jumbled mess and didn’t quite all come together.

kassab’s writing was very compelling and well written and the emotion and depth was clear, but there was just too much going on and too little at the same time. i kept waiting for the story to return to the characters from the beginning but they never properly re-emerged.

while thinking about the concept of this book without an overarching plot or characters i kept thinking about ‘how high we go in the dark’, a novel/short story collection i read last year where they were all sort of linked in the same world. i really think i would have preferred this book if it took a similar approach, and fleshed out fewer of these people in some more detail and used them to develop the world and make a point about the humanity behind political crises.

[Kayla Wolf · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5
I loved the premise of this book but the execution mostly just left me constantly confused and flipping back and forth trying to figure out if we've met this character before or if they're new. If it had been following the characters more clearly it would've been understandable, but as it was I felt like I didn't get to know any single character. The prose was beautiful though, and the size of each chapter made it super easy to read. In a way it's comparable to Shark Heart in structure, but that's where the comparison ends. I think it held some very important messages but it didn't impact me the way I wished it would've because of how distant everything felt and how confused I was the entire time.

[Sammy · Rating 5 out of 5]

The writing style is very poetic and there are a few gems of chapters inside. This is the second book I have read recently that has this different style of book with no central story but mini chapters. It is creative and well written but I am unsure what to think of this style of book. I liked this one as it offered little snippets into people's lives that you wouldn't normally see. I am interested to read some of her other work. Although this isn't my prefered style of story(or Unsure what to think), I think it is good to read outside the box and experience a different kind of creativity.

[Buddytrim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked up this book during a recent trip in Australia. This is not a light read. The author paints the haunting experience of war, poverty and violence. The transitory nature of leaders, family and friends. How war reduces survival to just that. It lets you feel how a whole country can submit to dictatorship and illogical leadership. So? Good book poolside? I took a star off because this is a novel. The character development didn't fit the object of the writing. To me. But I couldn't put it down because it's uncomfortable, important issue.

[Rebecca Roycroft · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting premise of how the book is written. As the reader we are ducking in and out of different peoples lives and though it is clearly during a time of war, retribution and uprising we are not told when or where. I found the writing interesting but too succinct to make connection with any persons or characters and just as you start to be immersed by the presenting chapter, it swiftly ends and we move to the next.

Not badly written, just not to my taste

[Monika Johnston · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a well written book. However, like a few books I've read recently it is more a meditation on war with short anecdotes that give no context thus ultimately making it difficult to connect to. Rather than following one narrative through line it is just a series of observations where characters, place and background are not fleshed out or introduced. In the beginning there was a recurring character and I found this the best bit.

[Katie Snell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Initial enjoyed the unique style in the this book but it did not hold my attention because it jumped between characters and stories too much. The characters introduced at the start of the book were really interesting and I would have like to follow them through to the end. Always good to read something different though.

[Vannessa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I quite enjoyed the anonymous settings at first, I thought the writing was powerful in expressing experiences of conflict and displacement, but after a while, this style felt repetitive and a little detached.

[Ashley Cook · Rating 5 out of 5]

Looking forward to read it immediately when it gets released.

[Ashleigh · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting and thought provoking read with such an interesting style and format.

[Ian · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh. The vignettes are so fleeting that there is zero emotional engagement. Meh again.

[The Owner of the house · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kassab did a wonderful job in her last book. This novel seems to be very accurate in terms of the world events that are taking place right now.

Congratulations, Yumna!