Circumstances of Publication and its Effects

The appearance of a book influences its reader and the way they understand it. I will examine the publication circumstances of the short fiction titled The Tribe. The story was written by Michael Mohammed Ahmad and it was published by Giramondo in 2014.

At first glance, the size of the book seems different from the average size for short novels. The book is cut almost in a square size. It looks innovative, but innovation is risky particularly when it does not make it more convenient and handier than those of conventional sizes. However, the size did not directly affect my understanding of the story, I had an impression of a children book at first, but after reading the story I wished if this would be the normal size of a short novel. Changing the size of the book would be more welcomed by readers if that also facilitated the use of the book. The current size of The Tribe is 15 by 17 centimetres, compared to a pocketbook of 10 by 15 centimetres, it is not that much more convenient to use.

The cover design is another primary feature of the book which a reader first encounters. The cover design is embedded in the Giramondo’s template for shorts, which includes the title and author’s name typed in capital Sans Serif font inside the inclined dark rectangle.  Other than that, the cover design is predominantly achieved through featuring a picture of the ancient Moorish stone carving, which covers the entirety of the page. This is a historical Muslim artwork from the glorious period of Islamic civilization in North Africa and Spain. Therefore, it may lead to an incorrect assumption that the book consists of some historical stories. The theme of the story is actually the modern daily life of an Arab diaspora in Australia and that suggests the cover design to depict some distinctive feature of the characters in the story or any influential element in their relationships. Rather than reflecting the theme of the story, the cover design is more relevant to the historical Islamic civilisation.  Therefore, the cover design seems bound to follow the tradition of a civilization which has prohibited the pictorial representation of human face throughout the history and that way it influences on our very first approach to the book.

A title is also an important feature of the book which affects the circumstances of its publication. The Tribe has an attractive title for the characters are from an Arab background, but their story is taking place in Sydney.  The title for this story consists of a projection of the characters' relationships under the tribal tradition facing a modern environment. This way, it may create some interesting juxtapositions of opposite conditions. Nevertheless, the narrative is not entirely reflecting upon the collective values of the tribe but the relationships of individuals from the perspective of the youngest member of the family called Bani. A book review by Angelo Loukakis suggests this story as an “individuation” and that begs the question in our mind whether the title is merely a humorous nostalgia of the situation that only exists in memories.

Following the size, cover design, and the title, the most distinctive feature of The Tribe seems to be the description on the back cover of the book. The description begins to complain about the effects of the mainstream media on the image of Arab-Australian Muslims. The description states that the presence of this community has been dominated by the stories of rape, violence, drug use, and terrorism. Lack of understanding the life and customs of Arab-Australians has created a misleading reputation with all its bad consequences. The description states that the wrong image in the media requires “a privileged introduction” of those Arabs which has been achieved by The Tribe. The main purpose of the description is to convince readers not to put down the book and it is done through advertising tools. This applies to consider the book as a new product in the market and inevitably emphasise some compelling keywords which are socially or politically relevant to the larger proportion of the population. Therefore, it has structured mainly to target mainstream Australian readers and the literary value and aesthetic importance have not been measured.

Another convincing feature in the publication of The Tribe is a beneficial reference from Les Murray. It is brought to complement the promotion of the book alongside the description. The impressive aphoristic style of the prominent analyst has printed at the bottom left of the back cover to provide further credentials. Although the citation does not directly mention the story of The Tribe, it encourages the culture of shorts.

The story is divided into three chapters. Each chapter begins with the recall of an incident when the narrator is in the certain age of seven, nine, and eleven years. All the chapters come under three specific titles. Each title has printed on the recto side of the folio following of which is a completely blank page. This separable chaptering, Serif font for text and the layout with a wide margin given to each page has made the story more readable.

The story has achieved good attention from critics and readers mostly because of its honesty in language and revealing some untold stories of Arab minority form their own perspective. However, what is more, relevant to my understanding of this story is not the circumstances of its publication but my own living experience. My understanding of this story is mostly because of the fact that I grew up in the same culture that has affected the publication of The Tribe to feature the picture of an ancient carved stone as its cover design.