The Lost Arabs
Shortlist year:
2020
Shortlist category:
Poetry
Published by:
University of Queensland Press
About the book
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 distinct new voice.
About the author
Omar Sakr
Omar Sakr is a bisexual Arab-Australian poet. His debut collection, 'These Wild Houses' (2017), was shortlisted for the Judith Wright Calanthe Award and the Kenneth Slessor Prize. His poetry has been published in English, Arabic, and Spanish, in numerous journals and anthologies. He placed runner-up in the Judith Wright Poetry Prize, and has also been shortlisted for the ACU Poetry Prize, the Story Wine Prize, and the Fair Australia Poetry Prize. Omar has performed his work nationally and internationally.
Judges’ comments
The vital, energy-driven poems in this collection speak with a clear and fearless voice, a voice that is often passionate and sometimes angry, but always lucid and warmly human. Omar Sakr, an Arab-Australian-born poet, writes of things that concern us all: love, fear, family, exile, sex, culture, and war. He explores the themes of freedom and violence, of banishment and forgiveness, of the realities of the body and the idea of home. These poems are at once complex and accessible, using a wide range of poetic techniques and forms, and employing richly evocative language. They emphasise the interconnectedness of human affairs: sexuality and spirituality, ethnicity and identity, courage and terror. Some of them are grounded in rage, others in compassion and gentleness, but all of them acknowledge the complexities of their subject matter, and many of them are works of great subtlety and beauty.
