Come together for an intimate evening of conversation as we celebrate the launch of Samah Sabawi’s Cactus Pear For My Beloved. Explore a powerful family story of love, resistance, and the enduring human spirit across generations.

About the book “Cactus Pear for My Beloved”

The story of a family over the past 100 years, starting in Palestine under British rule and ending in Redland Bay in Queensland.

Samah Sabawi shares the story of her parents and many like them who were born as their parents were being forced to leave their homelands.

Filled with love for land, history, and people it is more than anything else a family story and a love story told with enormous humanity and feeling. How the son (one of six), born at the height of the displacements to a disabled father and illiterate mother, a believer in peaceful resistance, became a leading poet and writer in Palestine, before being forced, with his own young family in tow, to flee and start a new life in Australia. One of the gifts of Samah Sabawi’s Baba is to remain open-hearted and optimistic.

“Samah Sabawi has written a story of courage and struggle. Her generosity is such that above all she has gifted us a story of love of family and country.” TONY BIRCH

“Cactus Pear for My Beloved offers a lyrical insight into the humanity of Palestinian survival.” The Saturday Paper

About the Authors:

Samah Sabawi is an author, playwright and poet and a recipient of multiple awards both nationally and internationally. Her theatre credits include the critically acclaimed and award-winning plays Tales of a City by the Sea and THEM. In 2020 Samah received the prestigious Green Room Award for Best Writing in the independent theatre category, and was shortlisted for both the NSW and Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards. Samah received a Doctor of Philosophy from Victoria University for her thesis titled Inheriting Exile, Transgenerational Trauma and the Palestinian Australian Identity.

Arwa Abousamra is a Saudi-born Palestinian writer, editor, and community organiser based in Australia. She is the author of the memoir Tea with Arwa published by Hachette in 2011 and has written for SBS food magazine and the Sun Herald. She is a Palestinian food enthusiast and has developed and taught Palestinian Culinary classes. Arwa studied a Master of Interpreting and Translation at Western Sydney and is passionate about amplifying underrepresented voices. Her role in “Tea and Talk” will involve facilitating a meaningful dialogue with Samah Sabawi, bringing her own insights and experience into the conversation about identity, exile, and the shared Palestinian experience.