Nadia Mahjouri
Author of Half Truth
Podcaster,
Counsellor,
and lover of words!
About me
I am a Moroccan Australian writer, counsellor, and group facilitator specialising in maternal mental health. Before this, I worked in various roles, including as a professional Koala and a work from home florist. But mostly, my professional background is in health policy, governance and academia, where my research focused on ethics and feminist philosophy.
I live in Hobart/nipaluna with my husband and varying combinations of our messy but happy blended family which includes three young adults, two little kids and a black labrador puppy called Russell Sprout.
At any given moment, you might find me dreaming about travelling somewhere I’ve never been, borrowing someone’s baby for a quick oxytocin hit, lusting after flowers in a neighbour’s garden or laughing too loud with the people I love.
I am the host of The Whole Truth: Motherhood and the Writing Life. In this podcast, I interview authors about how they manage to keep writing while living in the messy middle of family life, work and creativity. No idea why.
My writing has been shortlisted for The Deborah Cass Prize, QWC Publishable Competition and the SBS Emerging Writers Competition. I was awarded a 2022 Arts Tasmania ASA Mentorship, a 2023 Dramaturgy and Playwriting Fellowship APT, a QWC Underrepresented Writers Varuna Fellowship 2023, and an Ian Potter Cultural Trust Fellowship in 2024.
Half Truth is my debut novel and is inspired by my own experience of travelling to Morocco with my baby son to search for my father.
Half Truth was released on Feb 11 by Penguin Random House Australia.
Launch events are listed on the Events Page of Penguin Random House Australia
My literary agent is Gaby Naher from The Naher Agency
About Half Truth
Set between Morocco and Tasmania, Half Truth is the story of two mothers searching for the same man, Ahmed - an absent father and a missing son. This novel asks readers – how far would you go to find the truth?
Zahra is a 22-year-old mixed race feminist in 1999, who, struggling with new motherhood in her isolated Tasmanian home, travels to Morocco with her baby to search for her absent father, whom her mother refuses to discuss. But travelling to Africa raises more questions than answers when she realizes her father is a missing person.
Meanwhile, elderly Berber woman Khadija is also longing to see her missing son. As lies in her bed, after a stroke has left her unable to speak, she reflects on her life,. Alone in her memories she reflect on the ways she failed to keep her first-born son safe. As she watched he became dangerously embroiled in political activism. Khadija remembering, with horror, the night Ahemed disappeared - the same night rebels tried and failed, to kill the King.
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Would you like me to speak on your panel, at your book club meeting or host your next event?
Would you like me to write an article for you? Or would you like to suggest a guest for my podcast The Whole Truth: Motherhood and The Writing Life?
Please get in touch!