Poet Omar Sakr’s debut novel is a fierce and fantastic force that illuminates the bonds that bind families together as well as what can break them. An estranged father. An abused and abusive mother. An army of relatives. A tapestry of violence, woven across generations and geographies, from Turkey to Lebanon to Western Sydney. This is the legacy left to Jamal Smith, a young queer Muslim trying to escape a past in which memory and rumour trace ugly shapes in the dark. When every thread in life constricts instead of connects, how do you find a way to breathe? Torn between faith and fear, gossip and gospel, family and friendship, Jamal must find and test the limits of love. In this extraordinary work, Omar Sakr deftly weaves a multifaceted tale brimming with angels and djinn, racist kangaroos and adoring bats, examining with a poet’s eye the destructive impetus of repressed desire and the complexities that make us human.
Author
Omar Sakr is an Arab Australian Muslim poet born and raised in Western Sydney. His debut collection of poetry, THESE WILD HOUSES (Cordite Books, 2017), was shortlisted for the Judith Wright Calanthe award and the Kenneth Slessor Poetry Prize. His new book, THE LOST ARABS (UQP, 2019) was shortlisted for the NSW Premier's Literary Awards, the John Bray Poetry Award, the Queensland Literary Awards, and the Colin Roderick Award. In 2020 he won the Woollahra Digital Literary Award for Poetry. He has been anthologised in Best Australian Poems 2016 (Black Inc), and in Contemporary Australian Poetry (Puncher & Wattmann). His short fiction includes, 'An Arab Werewolf in Liverpool' in 'KINDRED: 12 Queer YA Stories' (Walker Books, 2019), and 'White Flu' in AFTER AUSTRALIA (Affirm Press, 2020). His essays have appeared most recently in MEANJIN (Autumn, 2019), MEET ME AT THE INTERSECTION (Fremantle, 2018) and GOING POSTAL (Brow Books, 2018).
