Taxi
Parramatta: A Dictionary of Place and Memory - T
This was one of the first stories I wrote in Politica.
I sent it to Youssef Rakha who is based in Egypt. He paired it with a photo of a man in Beirut standing in front of his taxi, a Lebanese flag flying in the background.
It is such a perfect pairing that each time I think of the story, I see that photo in my mind.
Youssef and I first connected on Twitter because of a shared interest in Roberto Bolaño.
He once said to me one of the most interesting things anyone has ever said about my writing.
He said that stylistically books like Politica and Australiana evoke a classical Arab literary tradition, fusing so many influences, without being constrained by old forms. What interested him is that I’ve come to my style without having studied old forms formally.
Youssef’s essay, Ode to a Shimmy, was one spark for a whole sequence in The Theory of Everything.