Introducing Parramatta: A Dictionary of Place and Memory

All literary problems are structural problems.

 For an example, let us go back twenty years.

 I made a decision to write a story that I intended to be novel-length. My structure? Two women writing letters to each other. I laboured for forty pages and finally gave up. It’s not that I lacked interest. I had plenty of interest but I did not have the technique to pull such a narrow frame into a functional house. Twenty years later, I am not sure I am prepared to give this structure another go.

 For each story, there is a frame that best suits the story. I am a firm believer that the question of structure should be completely resolved before setting off into the story’s wilderness, and if what has energy begins to splutter despite valiant attempts to give it life, turn a writerly eye to the structure directing your pen across the page.

 Which brings me to novels. To tell the story of an individual, the thread of introduction➪complication➪resolution may well be adequate, but it is by no means suitable for all the stories that wish to be told. It is not the best structure for the story of a community or region or for a story that is going to take in the entire world.

 Which brings me to the dictionary. It is an assumption that most people are familiar with the structure of a dictionary. Words are arranged alphabetically and if we do a Venn diagram comparing a dictionary and encyclopaedia, there will be overlap.

 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. I knew at the outset that the entries would be placed under titles and it would be fragmentary in spirit.

 While a dictionary is known for its technical and functional parameters, it has also been used creatively. For those interested in creative versions, there’s The Book of Imaginary Beings by Jorge Luis Borges and Margarita Guerrero, Nazi Literature in the Americas by Roberto Bolaño, which is not alphabetical at all, and then Léxico de Afinidades by Ida Vitale, which I picked up on a 2022 trip to Uruguay and has just been translated into English by Sean Manning.

 Compendium. Lexicon. Encyclopaedia. Dictionary.

 My efforts with Parramatta: A Dictionary of Memory and Place are too modest to be called an encyclopaedia. I am of the generation that knew the multi-volume encyclopaedia sets that some people had in their homes. I like the concept of a lexicon or compendium which need not be alphabetical, but my intention was to arrange A-to-Z so a dictionary it was going to be.

 As for the presentation of this project. First, eight letters will appear on the Sydney Review of Books website. They will be released in pairs of C & S, T & W, M & N and O & P over the next couple of months.

 Next year, Giramondo Publishing will be printing the full dictionary so it is available in physical form.

 I consider Parramatta: A Dictionary of Place and Memory a supplement to my fictional words. In spirit, it is closest to The Theory of Everything, and the two are sister works.

 So here is the dictionary and we begin in an unconventional fashion, not with the first letter of the alphabet but with the pairing of C and S.

Yumna Kassab
August 2025  

Notes on the work

Like its physical counterparts, this digital dictionary can be read using different access points. You can click on a specific entry and navigate forward or backward alphabetically. You can also download all the letter entries as a PDF onto your device. There’s also a search bar down below if you’re looking for something peculiarly Parramatta-related.

For more information on the Parramatta Laureateship in Literature, please see the program page HERE. We would like to thank our program partners, the Writing and Society Research Centre at Western Sydney University and the City of Parramatta. 

We’d like to thank the development team at Supermarket and the design team at Public Websites for helping us make the Parramatta Dictionary a reality.

Unless otherwise stated, images were supplied by the author.