National Anthem

Mohamed Hassan’s National Anthem is a layered, politically charged collection that moves between lyric intimacy and cultural critique with clarity and force. Structured around refrains of migration, loss, racialisation, and belonging, the poems shift across geographies-from Aotearoa to Cairo to Istanbul-interrogating identity in the wake of empire, terrorism, and assimilation. With tonal dexterity and narrative precision, Hassan dissects the personal impacts of structural violence while preserving a grounded lyric voice. This is a work attentive to grief, satire, inheritance, and the quiet weight of diasporic memory.