Black Inc. acquires El Sayed’s memoir ‘Muddy People’

Black Inc. has acquired world rights to Sara El Sayed’s debut memoir Muddy People, a ‘smart, funny, terrifically lively exploration of growing up as a Muslim Australian in the outer suburbs of Brisbane’.

El Sayed said Muddy People ‘interrogates what it meant for me to be an Egyptian Muslim girl in a majority white community’ and is an expansion of her contributions to the anthologies Growing Up African in Australia (ed by Maxine Beneba Clarke, Black Inc.) and Arab, Australian, Other: Stories on race and identity (ed by Randa Abdel-Fattah & Sara Saleh, Picador).

‘Sara’s voice is wonderfully engaging, and we know readers will love her story as much as we do,’ said Black Inc. in a statement. ‘The “Growing Up” series has a strong history of bringing us into contact with talented writers, such as Benjamin Law (Growing Up Asian), and we are delighted to welcome Sara to the Black Inc. fold.’

El Sayed’s work ‘The Blind Pussy Cat’ is shortlisted for this year’s Richell Prize for emerging writers.

Category: Local news Rights and acquisitions