University campuses are ripe for creative inspiration. But where Australian authors have recently leveraged the campus novel to explore gender equality and coming of age (see Diana Reid’s 2021 debut Love and Virtue, and Higher Education by Kira McPherson), Zeynab Gamieldien’s The Scope of Permissibility provides insight into a side of student life rarely explored in fiction.
Her novel is set at an unnamed Sydney university, within the small and complex world of the campus Muslim Students’ Association (MSA). Sara Andrews is a 20-year-old Muslim woman of South African descent. She is an active member of the MSA alongside her best friend Abida, a Bangladeshi Australian Muslim who is politically engaged and opinionated – and correspondingly unpopular with her peers.
