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Bugger
The devastating and gritty fourth novel from Miles Franklin shortlisted author, Michael Mohammed Ahmad.
Some scars can never be seen, but will always be felt . . . long after the damage is done.
Hamoodi may only be ten years old, but he already knows that to speak out is dangerous. Lessons from the mother-land have taught him that standing out can see you lose everything. Or disappear. In a new place, he has learned to be quiet, contained. He carries the wisdom and knowledge of his mother and father. They have told him to trust no one - except family.
Alooshi understands first-hand the hurt words can bring. As a teenager, he's learned that knowing how to wound someone gives him power. But words can only give him so much. And when his younger cousin Hamoodi is bullied at school, Alooshi sees a way to get something else he wants.
Over one day and one night, Hamoodi will come to understand how vulnerable he is. He will discover that family is complicated and trust is a cruel weapon. For him, there will always be a before and an after. He will forever struggle to un-know. But maybe, in the knowing, he will find a way to take back his power. Maybe . . .
With a devastating poignancy and gritty tenderness, award-winning author Michael Mohammed Ahmad's new novel, Bugger, reveals an uncompromising representation of abuse and explores the impact one day can have on a lifetime.
'Heart-wrenching. Meticulously realised. An expertly crafted novel. It will resonate with readers drawn to emotionally confronting, voice-driven literary fiction, particularly fans of Douglas Stuart's Shuggie Bain and Anne Enright's The Gathering' BOOKS+PUBLISHING
'Navigates the uneasy bargains of family and faith, and the damage caused when silence is mistaken for safety' BRISBANE TIMES
Some scars can never be seen, but will always be felt . . . long after the damage is done.
Hamoodi may only be ten years old, but he already knows that to speak out is dangerous. Lessons from the mother-land have taught him that standing out can see you lose everything. Or disappear. In a new place, he has learned to be quiet, contained. He carries the wisdom and knowledge of his mother and father. They have told him to trust no one - except family.
Alooshi understands first-hand the hurt words can bring. As a teenager, he's learned that knowing how to wound someone gives him power. But words can only give him so much. And when his younger cousin Hamoodi is bullied at school, Alooshi sees a way to get something else he wants.
Over one day and one night, Hamoodi will come to understand how vulnerable he is. He will discover that family is complicated and trust is a cruel weapon. For him, there will always be a before and an after. He will forever struggle to un-know. But maybe, in the knowing, he will find a way to take back his power. Maybe . . .
With a devastating poignancy and gritty tenderness, award-winning author Michael Mohammed Ahmad's new novel, Bugger, reveals an uncompromising representation of abuse and explores the impact one day can have on a lifetime.
'Heart-wrenching. Meticulously realised. An expertly crafted novel. It will resonate with readers drawn to emotionally confronting, voice-driven literary fiction, particularly fans of Douglas Stuart's Shuggie Bain and Anne Enright's The Gathering' BOOKS+PUBLISHING
'Navigates the uneasy bargains of family and faith, and the damage caused when silence is mistaken for safety' BRISBANE TIMES
158 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 27, 2026
23 people are currently reading
192 people want to read
About the author
Michael Mohammed Ahmad
15 books100 followersMichael Mohammed Ahmad is an Arab-Australian writer, editor and community arts worker. He is the founding director of Sweatshop: Western Sydney Literacy Movement. In 2012, he received the Australia Council Kirk Robson Award in recognition of his outstanding achievements in community cultural development. Mohammed’s debut novel, The Tribe (Giramondo, 2014), won the 2015 Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Novelists of the Year Award. His second novel, The Lebs (Hachette, 2018) received the 2019 NSW Premier’s Multicultural Literary Award and was shortlisted for the 2019 Miles Franklin Award. Mohammed received his Doctorate of Creative Arts from Western Sydney University in 2017.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
February 22, 2026
Pub 27 Jan
🖤
This era and content? The milk bar, the Paddle Pop and Power Rangers and panel vans and Parramatta. I LOVE when I can see it in my mind’s eye. My area, my era. But these simple observations are secondary and almost a grievance comparable to narrative.
Bugger is a heavy and deliberate read built on one day, one boy, one culture, one family. One layered act. The author writes with a poetic sharpness that feels almost too intimate, which of course is skill. The story sits inside a child’s mind as he makes sense of a badness he cannot yet name. The effect is powerful and unsettling.
At the centre is a boy who loves words with a kind of fierce, hopeful devotion. Playing with them in his mind, knowing more than he realises. His keen sense of observation leads him into innumerable scenarios and innate sense of awareness. I found myself wanting to wrap him in something gentler than which the world is thrusting upon him. Something steady. Something unscary. Something that lets him keep that love of language without paying for it in pain.
The writing is exceptional and fiercely unique. It is deeply moving and alarmingly well observed. A confronting story but an important one for anyone willing to listen closely. It is one the reader must be ready for.
This is my first of this author, which feels wrong given how closely my workplace aligns with his own work and study.
By no means fast moving, I could not rate anything other than 5⭐️ Thank you Hachette, I’m happy to now say I’ve read this talented author, from my era who I’ve watched closely from the sidelines, not limited to the world of books.
🖤
This era and content? The milk bar, the Paddle Pop and Power Rangers and panel vans and Parramatta. I LOVE when I can see it in my mind’s eye. My area, my era. But these simple observations are secondary and almost a grievance comparable to narrative.
Bugger is a heavy and deliberate read built on one day, one boy, one culture, one family. One layered act. The author writes with a poetic sharpness that feels almost too intimate, which of course is skill. The story sits inside a child’s mind as he makes sense of a badness he cannot yet name. The effect is powerful and unsettling.
At the centre is a boy who loves words with a kind of fierce, hopeful devotion. Playing with them in his mind, knowing more than he realises. His keen sense of observation leads him into innumerable scenarios and innate sense of awareness. I found myself wanting to wrap him in something gentler than which the world is thrusting upon him. Something steady. Something unscary. Something that lets him keep that love of language without paying for it in pain.
The writing is exceptional and fiercely unique. It is deeply moving and alarmingly well observed. A confronting story but an important one for anyone willing to listen closely. It is one the reader must be ready for.
This is my first of this author, which feels wrong given how closely my workplace aligns with his own work and study.
By no means fast moving, I could not rate anything other than 5⭐️ Thank you Hachette, I’m happy to now say I’ve read this talented author, from my era who I’ve watched closely from the sidelines, not limited to the world of books.
February 15, 2026
Yet another masterpiece. Brilliant, breathtaking and masterful use of language. Such vivid writing that brings to life so acutely a most devastating and cruel abomination. You can’t look away, can’t put it down, can only reckon with this reality, which is so timely and so critical currently. Forever experimenting with form, that the entire story takes place over a day is another astounding technical feat. My heart flew into my mouth the entire time. I couldn’t put it down. I can’t stop thinking about it.
February 6, 2026
T.S. Eliot’s Objective Correlative posits:
“A set of words, a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events, which shall be the formula of that particular emotion. Such that when the external facts, which must terminate in the sensory experience, are given, the emotion is immediately provoked.” (The Achievement of T.S. Eliot. An Essay on the Nature of Poetry, p58)
This is language not as ornament, but as incantation: external facts conjuring interior resonance.
In Bugger, Michael Mohammed Ahmad conjures his own magic-imagery — a literary chain of words, literally chained and then un-broken — to make us really under-stand the word bugger. This is language that refuses to sit quietly on the page, even when erased and replaced by a joining-punctuation-mark: words bend, splinter, collide, and fall into the gut of meaning until we can no longer look away.
Bugger’s plot, in one line:
In a single devastating day, ten-year-old — baptised by his elders the “cute” version of “Mohammed”, Hamoodi, because “our real names are too sacred to burden upon a child” — navigates bullying, familial absence, cultural dislocation, and violent betrayal, learning that a childhood can “get-got-gone” just like his father was gone to the mother-land.
People together; standing under a tree — that is the origin of the word under-stand. This is Ali, Hamoodi’s father, teaching not only his son but the reader the true geometry of knowledge: to stand under an olive tree and share the sky, to claim that rootedness as belonging, as resistance. To really understand the root buried deep in the womb of the mother-land.
Hamoodi’s mother teaches us that the reason she sometimes calls her son “Mum” is because of the mother-tongue that comes from the mother-land, which resides within his mother; the ancient weight of her language append-aged to Hamoodi like a hyphen, shaping him even when he’s told to “never name the mother-country, [never] speak the mother-language. If anyone ever asked me where we were from, I needed to say ‘Here’.”
And then Hamoodi makes us understand that sometimes it’s impossible to un-sully your tongue — because there are b-words upon f-words and s-words of violence inflicted on bodies that look just like his: “with olive-oil-skin and dagger-hooked-noses and stitches-headed-curls and kh-kh-names and cracked-lip-smiles, like ours.” Language and flesh are both scarred; silence is not refuge, and sometimes a swear-word is all that can define and re-define and resist that violence.
In this way, Ahmad uses fractured form — clipped phrases and repeated rhythms, words that trip and pause — to enact Eliot’s Objective Correlative: an external situation, rendered in sensory detail, provoking the emotion we all feel but cannot name. The chain of events in Bugger becomes the formula of brutal-heartbreak, the gash where innocence — “there was, and once there was not.”
“A set of words, a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events, which shall be the formula of that particular emotion. Such that when the external facts, which must terminate in the sensory experience, are given, the emotion is immediately provoked.” (The Achievement of T.S. Eliot. An Essay on the Nature of Poetry, p58)
This is language not as ornament, but as incantation: external facts conjuring interior resonance.
In Bugger, Michael Mohammed Ahmad conjures his own magic-imagery — a literary chain of words, literally chained and then un-broken — to make us really under-stand the word bugger. This is language that refuses to sit quietly on the page, even when erased and replaced by a joining-punctuation-mark: words bend, splinter, collide, and fall into the gut of meaning until we can no longer look away.
Bugger’s plot, in one line:
In a single devastating day, ten-year-old — baptised by his elders the “cute” version of “Mohammed”, Hamoodi, because “our real names are too sacred to burden upon a child” — navigates bullying, familial absence, cultural dislocation, and violent betrayal, learning that a childhood can “get-got-gone” just like his father was gone to the mother-land.
People together; standing under a tree — that is the origin of the word under-stand. This is Ali, Hamoodi’s father, teaching not only his son but the reader the true geometry of knowledge: to stand under an olive tree and share the sky, to claim that rootedness as belonging, as resistance. To really understand the root buried deep in the womb of the mother-land.
Hamoodi’s mother teaches us that the reason she sometimes calls her son “Mum” is because of the mother-tongue that comes from the mother-land, which resides within his mother; the ancient weight of her language append-aged to Hamoodi like a hyphen, shaping him even when he’s told to “never name the mother-country, [never] speak the mother-language. If anyone ever asked me where we were from, I needed to say ‘Here’.”
And then Hamoodi makes us understand that sometimes it’s impossible to un-sully your tongue — because there are b-words upon f-words and s-words of violence inflicted on bodies that look just like his: “with olive-oil-skin and dagger-hooked-noses and stitches-headed-curls and kh-kh-names and cracked-lip-smiles, like ours.” Language and flesh are both scarred; silence is not refuge, and sometimes a swear-word is all that can define and re-define and resist that violence.
In this way, Ahmad uses fractured form — clipped phrases and repeated rhythms, words that trip and pause — to enact Eliot’s Objective Correlative: an external situation, rendered in sensory detail, provoking the emotion we all feel but cannot name. The chain of events in Bugger becomes the formula of brutal-heartbreak, the gash where innocence — “there was, and once there was not.”
April 4, 2026
Bugger is a small book I find hard to recommend due only to its subject matter. This review has taken me a while to write. Trying to work out my own thoughts as well as what is the best way to express them. How can I rate a book highly, yet not want to recommend it?
Within the first few pages, Ahmad tells you everything you need to know about Hamoodi. He's othered, grieving an absent father, soaked in shame and religiosity (very often hand in hand) that makes him so innocent/repressed he can't even say actual swear words inside his own head.
I found that Ahmad captures Australian primary school with an authenticity that's rare. The khaki uniforms, the metal wash basins, the school layout, the Joker backpack. At no point did I feel that the Australiana was forced or took me out of the story.
Hamoodi's inner voice is the engine of the book. His stream of consciousness has this quirk where one word triggers another by free association, showing a mind shaped by English as a second language. So much of his understanding is mediated through what he's watched on tv. He carries his backpack "like Bart Simpson.", he draws parallels with the Power Rangers episodes, his learning of language through Toyota commercials, describing people as muppets. The "I am become..." repetitions land differently across the book, sometimes funny, but by the end devastating.
The darker turn in the later chapters genuinely feels earned. Ahmad has alluded throughout the day to Alooshi's darker side. He shows multiple instances of the cousin committing animal abuse as well as physical abuse. Kicking the dog, burning the slugs, physically beating up two 10-year-olds. The locked bedroom door horror scene where Hamoodi recalls his baby sister saying stop. The fake "jump scare" where Hamoodi and his cousin are wrestling and you think that the hard thing he can feel isn't the actual answer of a toy his cousin has stolen for him.
Ahmad writes the cousin as following the six steps of child grooming to a tee, whether from personal experience or research and respect:
1)Targeting a vulnerable child.
2)Gaining trust.
3)Fulfilling a need.
4)Isolation.
5)Sexualising the relationship.
6)Maintaining control.
Each one is present and accounted for.
The "night game" with the older cousin is handled with real craft and respect for the subject matter. It's not included just for shock. The slow escalating boundary violations, Hamoodi's dissociation, his continual attempt to normalise what's being done to him until it is too late.
I feel that Ahmad also drops quieter hints that this may not be Hamoodi's first encounter with this kind of violation. The way he wonders if he has come to his body "sooner than natural," the way the language of "night game" echoes across other family members.
It's worth knowing that Ahmad draws on his own experience of childhood sexual abuse in writing this. In interviews he talks about writing like you're dead and producing work without fear of consequences, being completely vulnerable, confronting the darkest elements of lived experience without flinching. That comes through on every page.
The book ends with Hamoodi escaping to an olive tree, crying out for his lost father, and beginning to sink into the dirt. Down towards the roots, down towards what Ahmad calls "the depths of innocence found, innocence lost." The final words are just: "Do you understand? Um. Wait. Stop. No." A child(hood) disappearing. Ahmad doesn't explain it or soften it.
Within the first few pages, Ahmad tells you everything you need to know about Hamoodi. He's othered, grieving an absent father, soaked in shame and religiosity (very often hand in hand) that makes him so innocent/repressed he can't even say actual swear words inside his own head.
I found that Ahmad captures Australian primary school with an authenticity that's rare. The khaki uniforms, the metal wash basins, the school layout, the Joker backpack. At no point did I feel that the Australiana was forced or took me out of the story.
Hamoodi's inner voice is the engine of the book. His stream of consciousness has this quirk where one word triggers another by free association, showing a mind shaped by English as a second language. So much of his understanding is mediated through what he's watched on tv. He carries his backpack "like Bart Simpson.", he draws parallels with the Power Rangers episodes, his learning of language through Toyota commercials, describing people as muppets. The "I am become..." repetitions land differently across the book, sometimes funny, but by the end devastating.
The darker turn in the later chapters genuinely feels earned. Ahmad has alluded throughout the day to Alooshi's darker side. He shows multiple instances of the cousin committing animal abuse as well as physical abuse. Kicking the dog, burning the slugs, physically beating up two 10-year-olds. The locked bedroom door horror scene where Hamoodi recalls his baby sister saying stop. The fake "jump scare" where Hamoodi and his cousin are wrestling and you think that the hard thing he can feel isn't the actual answer of a toy his cousin has stolen for him.
Ahmad writes the cousin as following the six steps of child grooming to a tee, whether from personal experience or research and respect:
1)Targeting a vulnerable child.
2)Gaining trust.
3)Fulfilling a need.
4)Isolation.
5)Sexualising the relationship.
6)Maintaining control.
Each one is present and accounted for.
The "night game" with the older cousin is handled with real craft and respect for the subject matter. It's not included just for shock. The slow escalating boundary violations, Hamoodi's dissociation, his continual attempt to normalise what's being done to him until it is too late.
I feel that Ahmad also drops quieter hints that this may not be Hamoodi's first encounter with this kind of violation. The way he wonders if he has come to his body "sooner than natural," the way the language of "night game" echoes across other family members.
It's worth knowing that Ahmad draws on his own experience of childhood sexual abuse in writing this. In interviews he talks about writing like you're dead and producing work without fear of consequences, being completely vulnerable, confronting the darkest elements of lived experience without flinching. That comes through on every page.
The book ends with Hamoodi escaping to an olive tree, crying out for his lost father, and beginning to sink into the dirt. Down towards the roots, down towards what Ahmad calls "the depths of innocence found, innocence lost." The final words are just: "Do you understand? Um. Wait. Stop. No." A child(hood) disappearing. Ahmad doesn't explain it or soften it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 8, 2026
The honest exploration of early adolescence was engrossing. Ahmad approaches the fine line between sexual curiosity and abuse with a brave directness. While I didn't love following every tangent in Hamoodi's mind, his voice and relationship with his older cousin were rendered with care.
With that said, Bugger's attempt to be a 'migrant novel' confused me. The consistent allusions to the protagonist's homeland and the political element of his father's life were not well connected to the loss of innocence, despite many explicit attempts.
The 'un-acknowledgements' annoyed me....
With that said, Bugger's attempt to be a 'migrant novel' confused me. The consistent allusions to the protagonist's homeland and the political element of his father's life were not well connected to the loss of innocence, despite many explicit attempts.
The 'un-acknowledgements' annoyed me....
February 10, 2026
4.5 stars. Complex topics told with simplicity. Difficult subject matter written in an easily read manner. I often find that shorter books pack much punch and this one certainly does. All of Ahmad's books have been emotive for me. Half a star off full stars, when considering the writing through a child's voice (occasionally comes off as more wordly and sometimes reflective - is this in the now, or is there some looking back?), and the time frame which is intended to cover one day but packs a lot in so it sometimes seemed like a longer period was covered.
March 31, 2026
At first I took great delight at the depiction of 90s/00s(I guess?) Australia, comfort in the relatable, awkward confusion of being a not-white-kid, in the main character. Amongst this however, there's an unsettling undercurrent of loss, of war, of genocide. Unexpectedly the story also takes a harrowing, traumatic few turns. I was horrified, but I'm in awe at how emotive Ahmad's writing is. Difficult but necessary read. All the world's children are our children, and they should be protected.
Read
March 31, 2026Dark materials, made all the more intense by being told in the 1st person of a child and immediate presence. It might take a while to digest this one
March 26, 2026
After a fairly slow start, this becomes a harrowing tale. Unfortunately there are whole chapters dedicated to a blow by blow description of entire episodes of the Power Rangers children’s series. Whilst this evokes a child’s innocence as opposed to the tragedy that comes later, it’s also quite frustrating to read. There is so much left unexplained and unresolved in this novel which is disappointing. Beautifully written and full of empathy but could have been so much more.
April 30, 2026
Jag kanske missar nåt....? Men jag letade faktiskt! Jag blev liksom glad när jag hittade en "arab-australian"-författare. Bästa landet, men med mångfaldsperspektiv, yay!
Nay.
Flera hela kapitel återger ett Power Ranger-serieavsnitt. I detalj. (Serieskaparna borde nämnas som medförfattare!)
Och resten av detaljerna i boken? De är, s.a.s, "below the waist". Först snackas det bajs. Sedan tonårspojkars lek med sitt könsorgan. Inklusive... incest...?
"Kind of gross", hittade jag till slut en recension, bland alla hyllningar, som sa. Yup.
Det finns fina partier om upplevelsen av migration, och sorgen över en frånvarande (försvunnen) far. Men det gör nästan bara det äckliga ännu äckligare, och de fina formuleringarna konstigt malplacerade.
Redaktörer behöver redigera, tänker jag.
Och jag får söka vidare efter flerkulturella historier från down under.
Nay.
Flera hela kapitel återger ett Power Ranger-serieavsnitt. I detalj. (Serieskaparna borde nämnas som medförfattare!)
Och resten av detaljerna i boken? De är, s.a.s, "below the waist". Först snackas det bajs. Sedan tonårspojkars lek med sitt könsorgan. Inklusive... incest...?
"Kind of gross", hittade jag till slut en recension, bland alla hyllningar, som sa. Yup.
Det finns fina partier om upplevelsen av migration, och sorgen över en frånvarande (försvunnen) far. Men det gör nästan bara det äckliga ännu äckligare, och de fina formuleringarna konstigt malplacerade.
Redaktörer behöver redigera, tänker jag.
Och jag får söka vidare efter flerkulturella historier från down under.
February 14, 2026
"And I will never sleep again - never again, in a world where there are no men; a world where there are only boys and beasts"
I'm struggling to put into words how this story made me feel. The theme is definitely uncomfortable and quite distressing. That being said the writing is incredible! The author tells the story through Hamoodi, a ten year old boy. The story feels very authentic and I did genuinely believe I was seeing the world through the eyes of a ten year old boy.
As mentioned prior the theme is a difficult one, but I am glad I read it and I do think it's a very important piece of writing. Well deserved 5 stars.
I'm struggling to put into words how this story made me feel. The theme is definitely uncomfortable and quite distressing. That being said the writing is incredible! The author tells the story through Hamoodi, a ten year old boy. The story feels very authentic and I did genuinely believe I was seeing the world through the eyes of a ten year old boy.
As mentioned prior the theme is a difficult one, but I am glad I read it and I do think it's a very important piece of writing. Well deserved 5 stars.
May 6, 2026
Wow so heartbreaking - such incredible language and so interesting reading through the perspective of this curious 10 year old. Honestly would go as far to say the language is masterfall, such a clear love for words from both the author and seeped into this child. Form was so clever stretching out just one day and one night. I loved this and then was so heartbroken
February 20, 2026
It had me locked in, right up until the end and then I wanted to vomit. I truely felt heartbroken for our hero. What saddens me the most was its reality and truth. Another wonderful book by Ahmad.
March 2, 2026
A short story fleshed out with multiple side stories that distract from the main plot…and it’s kinda gross.
March 23, 2026
Harrowing. This book challenged me greatly.
The older cousin, having sought vigilante justice against the younger cousin's bullies, realises there are private spaces he can infiltrate. I kept waiting for some kind of goodness to prevail. There were so many closed doors, loud television sets and preoccupied and absent parents.
The older cousin, having sought vigilante justice against the younger cousin's bullies, realises there are private spaces he can infiltrate. I kept waiting for some kind of goodness to prevail. There were so many closed doors, loud television sets and preoccupied and absent parents.
April 25, 2026
The cover says "brutal, beautiful, heartbreaking" - can't add to that. I just had to sit quietly after I finished. And, Ahmad is at the coming Sydney Writers Festival .....
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews