Samah Sabawi (; born 1967) is a Palestinian playwright, scholar, commentator and poet. Her plays include ''Cries from the Land'' (2003), ''Three Wishes'' (2008), ''Tales of a City by the Sea'' (2014) and ''Them'' (2019). Sabawi has received two Drama Victoria Awards, a Green Room Award, and a place in the
VCE Drama curriculum for the latter two plays. Since 2014, ''Tales of a City by the Sea'' has been staged over 100 times in theaters and schools around the world. ''THEM'' will be remounted in July 2021, with a premiere at the
Arts Centre Melbourne
Arts Centre Melbourne, originally known as the Victorian Arts Centre and briefly called the Arts Centre, is a performing arts centre consisting of a complex of theatres and concert halls in the Melbourne Arts Precinct, located in the central M ...
before it tours through Shepparton, Bendigo, and Sydney.
Sabawi's essays and opeds have appeared in
The Australian
''The Australian'', with its Saturday edition ''The Weekend Australian'', is a broadsheet daily newspaper published by News Corp Australia since 14 July 1964. As the only Australian daily newspaper distributed nationally, its readership of b ...
,
Al Jazeera
Al Jazeera Media Network (AJMN; , ) is a private-media conglomerate headquartered in Wadi Al Sail, Doha, funded in part by the government of Qatar. The network's flagship channels include Al Jazeera Arabic and Al Jazeera English, which pro ...
,
Al-Ahram
''Al-Ahram'' (; ), founded on 5 August 1876, is the most widely circulating Egyptian daily newspaper, and the second-oldest after '' Al-Waqa'i' al-Misriyya'' (''The Egyptian Events'', founded 1828). It is majority owned by the Egyptian governm ...
,
The Globe and Mail
''The Globe and Mail'' is a Newspapers in Canada, Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in Western Canada, western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of more than 6 million in 2024, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on week ...
,
The Age
''The Age'' is a daily newspaper in Melbourne, Australia, that has been published since 1854. Owned and published by Nine Entertainment, ''The Age'' primarily serves Victoria (Australia), Victoria, but copies also sell in Tasmania, the Austral ...
, and
The Sydney Morning Herald
''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (''SMH'') is a daily Tabloid (newspaper format), tabloid newspaper published in Sydney, Australia, and owned by Nine Entertainment. Founded in 1831 as the ''Sydney Herald'', the ''Herald'' is the oldest continuous ...
. She is a frequent guest/co-presenter on 774 ABC Melbourne's Jon Faine's Conversation Hour. She appeared alongside Israeli writer
Ari Shavit,
BBC News
BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broad ...
New York and UN Correspondent Nick Bryant, actress
Miriam Margolyes
Miriam Margolyes ( ; born 18 May 1941) is a British and Australian actress. Known for her work as a character actor across film, television, and stage, she received the BAFTA for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Mrs. Mingott in Marti ...
, and numerous others.
Sabawi is a policy advisor to the Palestinian policy network
Al Shabaka, and a member of the board of directors of the
National Council on Canada-Arab Relations. She participated in various public forums on peace building, women in conflict areas, the
Palestinian right of return
The Palestinian right of return is the political position or principle that Palestinian refugees, both Immigrant generations#First generation, first-generation refugees ( people still alive ) and their descendants ( people ), have a right to ...
, as well as various presentations for interfaith groups. Previously, she was a public advocate for Australians for Palestine, Executive Director and Media Spokesperson for the
National Council on Canada-Arab Relations (NCCAR), and a Subject Matter Expert on the Middle East's cultural and political landscape for the Canadian Foreign Service Institute's Center for Intercultural Learning.
Writings
Samah Sabawi has co-edited ''Double Exposure'', an anthology of Jewish and Palestinian plays from diaspora for the
Playwrights Canada Press. Her poetry has also been featured in various magazines and books, most recently in an anthology published by
West End Press titled ''With Our Eyes Wide Open: Poems of the New American Century''.
In 2016, Novum Publishing released ''I Remember My Name: Poetry by Samah Sabawi, Ramzy Baroud and Jehan Bseiso''. The anthology aimed to feature "deeply personal and deeply political expressions of three gifted Palestinian poets in exile". The book received
Middle East Monitor's 2016
Palestine Book Award.
Currency Press published the script of ''Tales of a City by the Sea'' in 2016, which was then listed on the VCE play list for Drama students years 11 and 12. At the Drama Victoria Awards, it earned the title of ''Best Publication for VCE in 2016''.
In 2024 Penguin published ''
Cactus Pear for My Beloved'', about her family's life in Palestine and her parents' migration to Australia.
Plays
Sabawi wrote and produced the plays ''Cries from the Land'' (2003) and ''Three Wishes'' (2008), both successfully received in Canada.
In November 2014, Sabawi's play ''Tales of a City by the Sea'' (described as a "Palestinian story of love and separation") premiered at
La Mama Theatre in
Melbourne
Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...
, Australia and Al Rowwad Theatre, Palestine. With the venue entirely filled for each viewing, the play received highly positive reviews from The Sydney Morning Herald, The Music, The Australian Jewish Democratic Society and Melbourne Arts Fashion.
In 2018, Melbourne Theatre Company premiered a reading of Sabawi's ''Them'', scheduled to premiere at
La Mama Theatre (Melbourne) in 2019. Inspired by the psychology of civil conflict, Sabawi describes ''Them'' as a "tragicomedy about love, honour and sacrifice".
Views on the Palestine-Israeli conflict
Sabawi's family left Gaza following Israel's occupation of the Strip in the
Six-Day War
The Six-Day War, also known as the June War, 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states, primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan from 5 to 10June ...
. Although she has lived and worked in many countries around the world she still has "strong ties to her place of birth - ties that have shaped
erwork and identity". As a result of this she is fluent in both
English and
Arabic
Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...
and has given speeches and interviews in both.
Sabawi has called for better representation of the Palestinian people She has, for example, criticised the Palestinian leadership for signing the Oslo Agreement. In her view, the Oslo Agreements were "designed to fragment the Palestinian people both physically and politically." She has been a consistent participant of
Israeli Apartheid Week and a lifetime advocate for non-violent resistance.
Wheeler Centre Incident
Sabawi was controversially dis-invited from a speaker panel at the
Wheeler Centre in Melbourne, due to pressure from opposing speakers. Following a social media storm of protest, the Wheeler Centre reversed their decision. Sabawi joined
Peter Beinart, Mark Baker, Or Avi-Guy, Maher Mughrabi and
Dahlia Scheindlin in the event ''What we talk about when we talk about Israel/Palestine''. The panel was later broadcast on ABC's ''Big Ideas'' and is currently viewable on the Wheeler Centre website.
"Samah Sabawi"
''The Wheeler Centre''. Retrieved 23 December 2014.
Awards and nominations
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sabawi, Samah
Canadian women dramatists and playwrights
1967 births
Living people
Palestinian emigrants to Australia
Palestinian emigrants to Canada