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Omar Sakr Omar Sakr i(7885306 works by) (a.k.a. Omar J. Sakr)
Gender: Male
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BiographyHistory

Omar Sakr is a multi-awardwinning Arab-Australian writer and poet. His poetry has been widely published in Australia and overseas since the mid-2010s, and his debut collection, These Wild Houses, was released in 2017: it has been shortlisted for the Queensland Literary Awards and the NSW Premier's Literary Awards. His work has also regularly been shortlisted for the Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize.

His poems have been published in English, Spanish, and Arabic, and he holds a Creative Writing MA from the University of Sydney.

Most Referenced Works

Personal Awards

2020 recipient Australia Council Grants, Awards and Fellowships Arts Projects for Individuals and Groups      $50,000 
2020 winner The Woollahra Digital Literary Award Poetry for 'Where I Am Not' (on Poem-a-Day, Academy of American Poets).
2018 shortlisted Red Room Poetry Fellowship

Awards for Works

y separately published work icon Son of Sin South Melbourne : Affirm Press , 2022 23575478 2022 single work novel

'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.' (Publication summary)

2023 winner APA Book Design Awards Best Designed Literary Fiction / Poetry Cover designed by Amy Daoud.
2023 shortlisted Indie Awards Debut Fiction
y separately published work icon The Lost Arabs St Lucia : University of Queensland Press , 2019 15423160 2019 selected work poetry

'Visceral and energetic, Omar Sakr’s poetry confronts notions of identity and belonging head-on. Braiding together sexuality and divinity, conflict and redemption, The Lost Arabs is a seething, urgent collection from a distinctive new voice.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

2020 shortlisted Festival Awards for Literature (SA) Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature South Australian Literary Awards John Bray Award for Poetry
2020 shortlisted New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards Multicultural NSW Award
2020 shortlisted New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards Multicultural NSW Award
2020 winner Prime Minister's Literary Awards Poetry
2020 shortlisted Colin Roderick Award
2019 shortlisted Queensland Literary Awards Judith Wright Calanthe Award
America, You Sexy Fuck i "You’re wearing your prettiest dress:", 2017 single work poetry
— Appears in: 20 Poets : Selected Poems, Cordite Books Series 1 & 2 2017; (p. 100-101)
2014 shortlisted The Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize
Last amended 4 Jun 2020 08:58:06
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