Nadia Mahjouri 

I am a Moroccan Australian writer, counsellor, group facilitator, and mother of five - two littles and three adults - and a grandchild too! Based in nipaluna/Hobart, I live and write on muwinina country, on the island of lutruwita.

My debut novel, Half Truth will be released in early 2025 by Penguin Random House Australia.

My literary agent is Gaby Naher from Left Bank Literary.

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 literary autofiction 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.

I have a background in health policy and academia, focusing on ethics and feminist philosophy - having worked with feminst theorist Judith Butler at University of California. Additionally, I am a non-executive director of an Aged Care Community Care provider Care Forward.

My writing has been shortlisted for The Deborah Cass Prize, QWC Publishable Competition, SBS Emerging Writers Competition. I was awarded a 2022 Arts Tasmania ASA Mentorship, a 2023 Dramaturgy and Playwriting Fellowship APT, and a QWC Underrepresented Writers Varuna Fellowship 2023, and was awarded an Ian Potter Cultural Trust Grant in 2024.