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Vahida Berberovic

@vberberovic

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Avid coffee drinker, reader and writer; winner of the WestWords Prize; 2026 release of Where the Soil Remembers📍Sydney, Darug and Tharawal country.

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Everyone who knows me is aware that I love Ed Sheeran and that I am a passionate advocate for Palestine, so it would have been puzzling, I assume, that I haven’t said anything so far about his silence, then not-apology regarding Macklemore’s axing from the tour. The reason is not that I am conflicted between my loyalties, or that I am trying to forget what he’s done (or not done), or that I am gathering reasons/excuses for his behaviour.

No. The reason is much more personal and deeply felt. When Ed Sheeran stayed silent, it was a silence only too familiar to me. I once had friends like Ed Sheeran, in a different country, in a different life; and those friends broke something in me that I have tried to repair ever since.

Read the full article on my Substack: vberberovic.substack.com by @vberberovic

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15 hours ago

It’s party time at the Berberovics!!!
From longlisted to shortlisted, my lovely daughter Azra!

Congratulations, sweetheart!

If you’ve never met anyone who’s written stories from the time they could hold a pen, now you’ve met one!
#proudmum. by @vberberovic

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a day ago

Books and Publishing is Australia’s primary trade publication for the domestic book industry. They’re also the sole pre-publication review provider for Australian and New Zealand books.

And they just published their review of my book Where the Soul Remembers, reviewed by Tara Lee!

If you’re a paid subscriber, you can read the full review on their website. And if not, here’s one sentence pulled from that review. by @vberberovic

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2 days ago

Fierceland is a multi-generational story stretching across countries, cultures and forms. Musa combines family history, drama, poetry, mythical storytelling, suspense, even visual art!
The main story line follows siblings Rozana and Harun, children of a self-made palm-oil magnate in Malaysian Borneo, implicated in deforestation and exploitation.
Rozana and Harun move between Malaysia, Australia and the US, trying to find their place in this world. Despite the immense wealth, their place isn’t guaranteed or easy to achieve. In their early childhood, they are united by their love for the video game of The Legend of Zelda but become estranged after witnessing a crime that implicates their father.
They deal with their trauma in different ways. Rozana resorts to petty crime until she’s shipped to Australia, where she’s even more of an outcast. Here, she reconnects with Crazy Auntie, her father’s former friend, now staunchest critic, who leads her to the path of accepting her heritage and voicing it. This is in severe conflict with the values her parents have instilled in her and she keeps flipping between the two, even in her artwork.
Harun initially flees to religion, but when he’s bullied at his exclusive school in Australia, he learns to disguise himself and presents to the world what it wants to see. He’s so good at deception, he himself is convinced by the successful tech bro he has become. His true parts, his beliefs, sexual orientation, are only acknowledged after doors are closed and screens are off.
When their father passes away, the siblings reunite in Malaysia where everything is as it was, if not worse, and their mother is determined to continue her husband’s legacy. They find courage to accept the world for what it is and fight for what they want to see.
The book is like the jungle it portrays: unwieldy, breathless, full of danger and beauty, slowly being destroyed by man. However, Musa’s deft story telling brings it all together in a satisfying ending. by @vberberovic

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3 days ago

Where the Soil Remembers by Vahida Berberovic.

Pre-Orders now available. Pre-order through WestWords Books for your signed copy of Where the Soil Remembers.

From the spring of 1992, approximately 100,000 people were killed as Yugoslavia collapsed and disintegrated. Bosnian Muslims were systematically removed and massacred. Selma survived. Her husband and young daughter did not.

Selma’s Australian cousin, Damir, helped extract her and bring her to Sydney, where she has built a seemingly perfect life–complete with a new husband and child. She has buried her loss, her grief, and the guilt of having survived. She has become a different person, far away from the Selma who loved, lost and witnessed the horrors of humanity.

However, the news of the trial of alleged Bosnian Serb war criminal Borislav Simic shatters Selma’s carefully constructed world. She fails at her job, her family, and barely escapes, causing her own death. Selma realises that she must return to Bosnia. She needs to unlock her past to grieve, to reconcile with the unimaginable, so she can forgive and find compassion within herself and her past. by @vberberovic

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4 days ago

My book is almost ready! It will be available on November 1st. If you’re planning to buy the book, it would be great if you could pre-order here: https://www.westwords.com.au/product/where-the-soil-remembers

The link is also available in my bio.

All pre-ordered books in Australia will be signed by the author!

For international orders, please DM me and I’ll send you a different link.

Thanks so much! by @vberberovic

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5 days ago

I attended the Sydney launch of the book The Weight of Witness last night. It is the collection of 40 essays of health care workers, and other essential workers, from Australia and New Zealand who have served in Gaza during the latest onslaught of genocide.

It was a mid-week event so I expected a small number of people to track down to Marrickville, but the second photo here shows the large number of people who came to show they cared.

Most of them were health care workers, clearly frustrated by the development of the situation regarding Palestine and what they were able to say, let alone do.

The first part of the night focussed on the book and the experiences of the two doctors and one engineer who had been to Gaza. And while I already know a lot about the horrific situation, hearing the first-hand accounts didn’t allow me to sleep last night.

But what is one sleepless night in the face of this relentless destruction of life, nature, culture, decency and humanity.

The speakers were so very humble and gracious, never preaching, only reporting on what they witnessed. To see a mother and daughter shot down on a street but unable to rescue them, to see blood donations held up by Israel until they could no longer be used, to be unable to operate because the only x-ray machine in the region had broken down …

When asked what could be done by those of us who can’t go, who may have no money, who are not comfortable with public displays of support, they encouraged people to do what felt good and comfortable for them to do.

If you are one of these people, please look at the last few slides; such action can lead to better outcomes, that can make our government take appropriate action. Your act doesn’t have to be magnanimous to be efficient. If only enough of us care and do this.

I am in tears after reading only the first few accounts but I will keep reading to bear witness. by @vberberovic

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8 days ago

I am absolutely thrilled, though not surprised, to see my daughter’s name on the long list for the Australian Fiction Prize. Even though I’m biased, I know that her work deserves to be here. It’s a gripping story that I can’t wait for all of you to read. by @vberberovic

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9 days ago

Notebooks

Most of what I write, at least the first draft/outline/idea/plan, is written by hand in my notebook.

But my notebook is not just for creative writing. I use it for journaling, meeting notes, to-do lists, little notes for myself to follow up, one or two lines that seem so cute but don’t belong into any piece I’m working on, 2-line poems, weekly shopping plans, whatever comes into my mind and needs to be written down before it disappears and I won’t be able to ever recall it again.

It usually takes me about a year to fill a notebook. Whenever I start a new one, I write a quote on the first page. It becomes the guiding light for that period while I’m writing in that notebook. There are numerous times when I’m uninspired, when I’m despondent with the world or myself, when I feel nothing is worth it and I’m the worst person to write about pretty much anything.

But somehow, the quote (even though it’s a different one each time) helps me move forward and motivates me to keep going.

Here are a few I’ve used over the last few notebooks.

And the one I’ve chosen for this notebook is by Ursula K Leguin:
‘There have been great societies that did not use the wheel, but there have been no societies that did not tell stories.’ by @vberberovic

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10 days ago

Virginia Woolf’s Orlando follows an English nobleman who lives for centuries, beginning in the Elizabethan era and transforming mysteriously into a woman.

Only then does she realise all the privileges she had while she was a he. The protagonist spends hundreds of years trying to reclaim her own property and cash. This, as the novel itself, is inspired by Woolf’s lover Vita Sackville-West (to whom the book is dedicated) as she, being a woman, could not inherit her ancestral home

Woolf moves through changing historical periods, and Orlando experiences shifting identities, relationships, artistic ambitions and social expectations.

The novel is the first English work of art about sex change, in which the author explores gender, time, sexuality, authorship, personal agency and how our actions and our sense of self are influenced not only by class and heritage but also by the gender into which we are born.

I expected all of this as I’d read/heard so much about the book. But what I didn’t expect is the humour and playfulness in which Woolf approaches the themes of the book. The most cutting, incisive social commentary is steeped in satire and barely disguised ridiculing of social norms.

I have a new favourite Woolf! by @vberberovic

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13 days ago

One of the themes in my book Where the Soil Remembers is the life of the main protagonist Selena that she leads after the Bosnian War. For a long time, I wanted the title of the book to be ‘The past is never in the past’ because it isn’t. No matter how capable we are in locking it away, banishing it from our lives, it is still there. It lingers, bubbles under the surface, ready to erupt at the most innocuous of times. In my book, Jacqui, a friend of the main characters, is a psychologist and she explains to her friend Damir that his cousin Selma has become an expert in locking away her pain and grief but that it won’t stay that way forever. So, when there are finally signs that she may be losing it, Jacqui is the only one who rejoices, who is happy it is not a complete disaster. The fact that Selma has started talking about the past is a good sign, and if she can’t recall everything, it is probably for the better. It could be overwhelming to remember everything at once.

In my Substack post, I explore my own troubled feelings about being a survivor and how that lead to the writing of my book. by @vberberovic

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17 days ago

Imagery in creative writing

‘Hope is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all – ‘
Emily Dickinson

When discussing beautiful imagery, metaphors and simile, we usually think of poetry. The queen herself, Emily Dickinson, is a never-ending source of some of the most beautiful metaphors, many of which have become a staple on cards, Instagram carrousels and epigraphs.
It is not uncommon in prose, either, but it stands out less and has to compete with many other literary devices. Sometimes the whole work is a metaphor, like George Orwell’s Animal Farm, and sometimes a main character is a metaphor, like the crow in Grief is a Thing with Feathers by Max Porter, which is an homage to Emily Dickinson’s poem. But usually, in fiction, it is restricted to an image, referring to, most often, a human condition, experiences and feelings, comparing them to events or conditions in nature, our surroundings, even inanimate objects.
As a somewhat obsessive researcher in all things language, I took a deep dive into this area of the writing process that has resulted in some of the most beautiful sentences I have read. And because I’m a teacher, I needed to translate it into lessons learnt.
(a longer version, with links to useful sites that provide explanations, examples and exercises, please go to my website: vahidaberberovic.com)

(Background painting: Georgia O’Keefe: Blue and Green Music) by @vberberovic

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18 days ago