He Died with a Felafel in His Hand
1994 novel by John Birmingham
He Died with a Felafel in His Hand is a purportedly non-fiction autobiographical novel by Australian author John Birmingham about his experiences as a share housing tenant, first published in 1994 by The Yellow Press (ISBN 1-875989-21-8). The story consists of a collection of colourful anecdotes about living in share houses in Brisbane and other cities in Australia with variously dubious housemates. The title refers to a deceased heroin addict found in one such house. The book was subsequently adapted into the longest running stage play in Australian history and, in 2001, was made into a film by Richard Lowenstein, starring Noah Taylor, Emily Hamilton and Sophie Lee. A sequel, The Tasmanian Babes Fiasco, was published in 1998.
In 2004, to celebrate the book's tenth anniversary, Birmingham approached comic artist Ryan Vella to produce a graphic novel of the book. The pair met in April of that year at Artspace Mackay, for the opening of the Headspace exhibition. The comic was published in September 2004 by Duffy & Snellgrove (ISBN 1-876631-95-3). Paul Dawson calls this a grunge lit book.
Synopsis
While the book is not written in a linear fashion, the order of houses (and housemates) John lives in is as follows:
1st Place – The Boulevade
Tom lives in the garage
Mel lives upstairs.
The public source identifies “He Died with a Felafel in His Hand” as 1994 novel by John Birmingham. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Died, Felafel and Hand.
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Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5688719. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1994, 2001, 1998 and 2004.
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This entry incorporates text from “He Died with a Felafel in His Hand” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.