'Razor sharp, uncompromising and bitingly funny - a brilliant combination.' Omar Robert Hamilton
Discipline
'Razor sharp, uncompromising and bitingly funny.' Omar Robert Hamilton
Description
Shortlisted for the 2026 Miles Franklin Literary Award
Silence is complicity, but what does it take to speak up?
Hannah is a journalist running on empty. Balancing the chaos of new motherhood, her job and her faith, she increasingly feels the judgement of a newsroom that doesn’t value her voice. Ashraf is an academic whose career and personal life are in freefall.
As Israel’s bombardment of Gaza intensifies, a teenage student is arrested for protesting a university’s ties to an Israeli arms manufacturer. Both Hannah and Ashraf are pulled into the unfolding drama – but in very different ways. While Hannah fights to tell the true story, risking her place in the newsroom, Ashraf chooses caution, prioritising his reputation as the stakes rise around him.
As their paths begin to converge, both must confront what they are willing to stand for – and what their silence might cost them.
Reviews
'Blistering and brilliant.' Melissa Lucashenko, author of Edenglassie
'A tale with profound new resonance... With visceral detail, Randa Abdel-Fattah captures the pangs of survivor guilt and rage felt by first-generation Australians witnessing the destruction of their homelands while living in 'the empire', and the cost of speaking out against the status quo.' The Guardian
'As Ramadan unfolds under the shadow of the Gaza genocide, Discipline asks what is the cost of speaking truth to power, and worse, what is the cost of remaining silent. In this blistering, urgent novel, Randa Abdel-Fattah captures the impossible choices faced by those who dare to raise their voices in a world that demands silence. Unflinching in its moral clarity, this book is necessary reading.' Susan Abulhawa, author of Mornings in Jenin
