A novel that speaks to the moment we are in and follows childhood friends in the tangled streets of millennial Damascus as they grow into adulthood has won the 2025 Dorothy Hewett Award.

UWA Publishing and the Copyright Agency awarded Egyptian-Danish-Australian photographer, journalist and writer Mohammed Massoud Morsi the prize for his unpublished fiction manuscript The Hair of the Pigeon.

The judges for the 2025 award were Professor Tony Hughes-d’Aeth, UWA Chair of Australian Literature, Kate Pickard, UWAP publishing manager, James Jiang, Sydney Review of Books editor, and WA poet Caitlin Maling.

The judges said they were heartened by the number of submissions, well over 300, and that the winning fiction manuscript was a gripping novel.

“In the tangled streets of millennial Damascus, Ghassan and Sama are childhood friends,” the judges said.

“As they grow into adulthood in the convulsions of the Arab Spring, violence erupts intimately into their lives.  The fatality of these days, between regimes and in the shadow of violent expulsions, plays out with the precision of a primal scene.”

Morsi thanked the judges for recognising his work and said when the story began almost 20 years ago he never imagined that this was the way it would come to life.

“As a journalist who has spent time listening to people from all walks of life, I am grateful that not only mine, but their stories get a chance to be told,” Morsi said.

“In Australia we have the privilege of peace and a chance to consider lives different from our own.

“And now, with current events around the world, I think this is a wake-up call for all of us to understand the stories of those of us who yearn for justice.

“My wish is this book is received in the manner in which it is given. I have always been drawn to the stories that bind us and give us the sense of belonging to each other; that which we dream of but struggle speaking about.”

Morsi’s award includes a publishing contract and manuscript development with UWA Publishing and $10,000 courtesy of the Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund.  The Hair of the Pigeon will be published by UWA Publishing in the first half of 2026.

The Dorothy Hewett Award is open annually to Australian writers of fiction, narrative non-fiction, or poetry and the winner receives $10,000 courtesy of the Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund and a publishing contract with UWA Publishing. The award will reopen for submissions on 1 November 2025.