In 2023, The Sydney Review of Books partnered with City of Parramatta and the Writing and Society Research Centre, one of Australia’s leading centres for literature and writing, to select a highly regarded writer with links to the Parramatta region as the inaugural Parramatta Laureate in Literature.
As the central river city of Sydney, Parramatta is the home of the Dharug Peoples who have continuously cared for culture and Country for more than 60,000 years through song, dance, knowledge sharing and storytelling. The City of Parramatta continues to innovate and thrive from this foundation of culture, welcoming people to our city from across the nation and the globe. Parramatta is a future-focused city that celebrates the community’s many cultures through award-winning initiatives, festivals and venues. It is a growing and dynamic region that is developing rapidly as one of Australia’s major economic, cultural and educational centres.
The Laureateship recognises the unique and vital work of writers as contributors to narratives of place – through storying, remembering histories, and shaping a creative vision for our shared future. This is an exciting new opportunity to put literature at the heart of cultural conversations and art practice within the Parramatta region.
The Laureate is a highly regarded writer who has made an outstanding contribution to literature, is actively making new work, and ideally has connections to the Parramatta region. As Laureate, they will produce a literary work of significance prompted by the City’s vision and aspirations, while advocating strongly for literature by publicly engaging with a diverse range of people, and inspiring current and future readers and writers.
The Laureate is supported by editors and writers from the SRB/WSRC, with cultural mentorship as appropriate. Applicants are asked to comment on their connections with the Parramatta region and experience in public engagement, and to give evidence for their publication achievements. In 2023, the inaugural Parramatta Laureate in Literature was awarded $50,000 from the time of appointment in late 2023 to program completion in December 2024.
The Parramatta Laureateship in Literature
The 2024 Parramatta Laureate in Literature
Photo credit: Tiger Webb
Local Parramatta author Yumna Kassab is the inaugural Parramatta Laureate in Literature, an accolade announced in December 2023 by the Sydney Review of Books and the Writing and Society Research Centre at Western Sydney University.
Yumna Kassab is a renowned fiction writer with deep connections to the region. She is a Parramatta-based novelist and short fiction writer, a high school teacher, and a staunch supporter of the Western Sydney Wanderers. The Lovers (2023) was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award, the Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Fiction, and the Victorian Premier’s Award for Fiction. She also authored The House of Youssef (2019), Australiana (2022), Politica (2024), and Theory of Everything (2025).
Read the full announcement here.
