Parramatta: A Dictionary of Place and Memory

Parramatta: A Dictionary of Place and Memory is a unique meditation on living in Sydney’s ‘second city’ 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 laureate, Yumna Kassab set herself the task of collecting her observations and thoughts on living in Parramatta, now one of the country’s most important economic, political and cultural centres. Employing the dictionary form, the work is at once, as she says, ‘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 in other words, driven by feeling and admiration and a sense of responsibility, one which, in an unassuming manner, presents an intimate portrait of its compiler. As Kassab writes, ‘It was my idea that a dictionary could tell the story of a person (me) in connection with a place (Parramatta) with enough flexibility to take in detours, digressions, musings, and general quirkiness.’

Praise for Yumna Kassab:

Continuously surprising and probing…both personal and expansive; introspective and ambitious. - Kylie Mirmohamadi

Stylish and searching writing, with an exquisite command of language holding fast through unstable experimentation with form. - Sydney Morning Herald

Kassab has written fireworks. - Guardian

Kassab’s prose is unsparing and frank yet unstinting. - Sydney Review of Books

About the author

Yumna Kassab is the author of The House of Youssef, Australiana, The Lovers, Politica andThe Theory of Everything. Her latest novel is Goodbye, My Love. Her books have been listed for the Stella Prize, the Miles Franklin Literary Award, Prime Minister’s Literary Awards, Queensland Literary Awards, a Victorian Premier’s Literary Award and a NSW Premier’s Literary Award. Her writing has appeared in Sydney Review of Books, Griffith Review and the Sydney Morning Herald. She was the inaugural Parramatta Laureate in Literature. Her new book, Parramatta: A Dictionary of Place and Memory, is forthcoming with Giramondo in 2026.

Yumna Kassab
Published July 2026
Paperback
352 pages 
210mm x 148mm
ISBN 9781923106741