Daniel Nour and Tyree Barnette sign with Affirm Press

Affirm Press has acquired world rights to books by Egyptian-Australian writer and journalist Daniel Nour and African-American Australian writer Tyree Barnette.

Nour and Barnette were recipients of the 2021 Affirm Press Mentorship for Sweatshop Writers, and worked with Affirm Press commissioning editor Ruby Ashby-Orr to develop their manuscripts over the past three years. Ashby-Orr said: ‘While Daniel and Tyree’s books exhibit distinct styles, both are dedicated, talented writers with exceptional voices that we’ve loved helping to develop.’

Nour’s as yet untitled book is ‘a laugh-out-loud story of culture, family and surviving suburbia as a gay Egyptian-Australian’, according to the publisher. Said Nour: ‘I’m honoured to be working with Affirm Press on my first book. I hope my collection offers a unique account of my Arab-Australian experience as a queer Egyptian. I’m deeply grateful to Sweatshop Literacy Movement for their mentorship and advocacy and for helping me to cultivate my voice as a writer.’

Affirm said Barnette’s book, A Stolen Man on Stolen Land, was ‘an incisive and unique examination of the shifting power dynamics of race in Australia, through the eyes of an African American migrant’. Said Barnette: ‘It’s humbling to receive an offer to publish my first book with Affirm Press—an offer that could not have come without the hands-on assistance from the Sweatshop Literacy Movement. I’m excited to share my story as a Black expat from the USA, including reaching those milestones in life that we all experience, and the various lenses through which I’ve observed both countries.’

The Affirm Press Mentorship for Sweatshop Writers was established in 2018 to support and represent members of the growing collective of culturally diverse writers within the Sweatshop Literacy Movement. Previous mentorship recipients who have gone on to be published by Affirm are award-winning poet and writer Sara Saleh, author of the 2023 novel Songs for the Dead and the Living, and Shirley Le, whose 2023 novel Funny Ethnics recently sold screen rights.

Affirm plans to publish Nour’s and Barnette’s books in 2025.