image of person or book cover 8829909565142697531.jpg
Image courtesy of publisher's website.
y separately published work icon Son of Sin single work   novel  
Issue Details: First known date: 2022... 2022 Son of Sin
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'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)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • South Melbourne, South Melbourne - Port Melbourne area, Melbourne - Inner South, Melbourne, Victoria,: Affirm Press , 2022 .
      image of person or book cover 8829909565142697531.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 288p.
      Note/s:
      • Published 22 February 2022
      ISBN: 9781922711038

Other Formats

  • Large print.
  • Dyslexic edition.
  • Sound recording.

Works about this Work

An Elegant Revenge : Language at Play Lur Alghurabi , 2023 single work essay
— Appears in: Meanjin , Winter vol. 82 no. 2 2023; Meanjin Online 2023;

'I try to interrogate my reader bias as often as I can; the questionable motives behind my rage or comfort when reading, how hard and how often I project my own life onto the protagonist, and sometimes even, to my own shame, onto the author. And I wonder how often I am so hungry to read something that does my feelings and my experience justice (knowing full well I’m the only one who can write that), that I start to be frustrated when a book fails to do so. I suppose I’m still working on my book, and a great way to procrastinate is to think about how other people are writing their own books, and all the things they should have done differently. It’s been a safe and reliable distraction. I’m not above it.' (Introduction)

Literary Migrations Prithvi Varatharajan , 2023 single work review
— Appears in: Sydney Review of Books , May 2023;

— Review of Son of Sin Omar Sakr , 2022 single work novel

'Towards the end of Son of Sin, the narrator – a now adult Jamal Khaddaj Smith – relates a memory of ‘telling some story of his life’ to friends ‘like Adam or [his housemate] Dan’. His friends respond to his story ‘with mingled disbelief and wonderment, saying, Your life is like a soap opera – because there were too many characters, too much death, nothing at all like the kind of spare, elegant novels they studied in school’. ' (Introduction)

Book Review : Son of Sin, Omar Sakr Ned Hirst , 2022 single work review
— Appears in: ArtsHub , March 2022;

— Review of Son of Sin Omar Sakr , 2022 single work novel

'The poet's debut novel ranges over the big issues of sex, family, religion and self-identity.'

I'm Not Hungry Anymore Hasib Hourani , 2022 single work essay
— Appears in: Cordite Poetry Review , 1 December no. 107 2022; Liminal , October 2022;

'Ramadan is one month long and its timing follows the lunar calendar. This means that each year, it inches backwards twelve days. My tenth birthday, in September 2006, was on the first day of Ramadan. As I write this opening paragraph, it is April and we’re one week in. Between 2011 and 2018, Ramadan spanned the months of July and August—the northern hemisphere summer holidays.' (Introduction)

George Haddad and Omar Sakr Centre Bisexual Arab Australian Protagonists in Their Debut Novels Smriti Daniel , 2022 single work column
— Appears in: ABC News [Online] , May 2022;
Son of Sin by Omar Sakr Review – A Queer Muslim Boy Comes of Age in Poetic, Vivid Debut Rafqa Touma , 2022 single work review
— Appears in: The Guardian Australia , 25 February 2022;

— Review of Son of Sin Omar Sakr , 2022 single work novel

'A sexual awakening underscores bigger tensions – of faith, racism, tradition and shame – in a tender and candid first novel from the prize-winning poet'

Omar Sakr’s ‘Epic, Stunningly Dirty’ Debut Novel Challenges Macho Heterosexual Myths of Arab-Australian Culture Cherine Fahd , 2022 single work review
— Appears in: The Conversation , 1 March 2022;

— Review of Son of Sin Omar Sakr , 2022 single work novel

'Son of Sin, the debut novel from writer and poet Omar Sakr, tells the tale of Jamal Smith, a young Arab-Australian growing up in Western Sydney. Sakr’s two poetry collections, These Wild Houses (2017) and The Lost Arabs (2019), were widely admired, and the latter won the 2020 Prime Minister’s Literary Award.'  (Introduction)

Son of Sin : Omar Sakr Dion Kagan , 2022 single work review
— Appears in: The Monthly , March no. 186 2022; (p. 56)

— Review of Son of Sin Omar Sakr , 2022 single work novel
'“[W]hat was dread if not desire’s other face”? For Jamal Smith, the eponymous son of sin in Omar Sakr’s debut novel, coming of age as a queer Muslim in Western Sydney is animated by these twin feelings. Alas, for Jamal, desire tends to get lost in the dread.'

 (Introduction)

Heart, Guts and Mind Sam Cooney , 2022 single work review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 26 February 2022; (p. 20)

— Review of Son of Sin Omar Sakr , 2022 single work novel
Omar Sakr : Son of Sin Andy Jackson , 2022 single work review
— Appears in: The Saturday Paper , 5-11 March 2022;

— Review of Son of Sin Omar Sakr , 2022 single work novel

'It’s a familiar distinction. While guilt is the feeling of having done wrong, shame is the feeling of being wrong, the sense of being defined by some fatal, irredeemable flaw. Understanding shame is one thing, escaping from it something else entirely.' (Publication summary)

‘I Had a Lot of Self-loathing’ : Omar Sakr on Being Queer, Arab, Muslim and Australian Sarah Ayoub (interviewer), 2022 single work interview
— Appears in: The Guardian Australia , 1 March 2022;

'Revisiting ‘terrifying and traumatising’ moments from his own life, the poet’s debut novel Son of Sin explores a young man’s sexual awakening in a conservative migrant community'

y separately published work icon Omar Sakr on 'Son of Sin' and Writing Fantasy Astrid Edwards (interviewer), 2022 23926979 2022 single work podcast interview

'Omar Sakr is the author of two acclaimed poetry collections, These Wild Houses and The Lost ArabsSon of Sin is his first novel, and in this interview we also find our about his forthcoming poetry collection and a possible fantasy book on the horizon.

'The Lost Arabs won the 2020 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Poetry and was shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Literary Award, the John Bray Poetry Award, the Judith Wright Calanthe Award, and the Colin Roderick Award. 

'Omar is a widely published essayist and editor whose work has been translated into Arabic and Spanish. ' (Production abstract)

George Haddad and Omar Sakr Centre Bisexual Arab Australian Protagonists in Their Debut Novels Smriti Daniel , 2022 single work column
— Appears in: ABC News [Online] , May 2022;
I'm Not Hungry Anymore Hasib Hourani , 2022 single work essay
— Appears in: Cordite Poetry Review , 1 December no. 107 2022; Liminal , October 2022;

'Ramadan is one month long and its timing follows the lunar calendar. This means that each year, it inches backwards twelve days. My tenth birthday, in September 2006, was on the first day of Ramadan. As I write this opening paragraph, it is April and we’re one week in. Between 2011 and 2018, Ramadan spanned the months of July and August—the northern hemisphere summer holidays.' (Introduction)

An Elegant Revenge : Language at Play Lur Alghurabi , 2023 single work essay
— Appears in: Meanjin , Winter vol. 82 no. 2 2023; Meanjin Online 2023;

'I try to interrogate my reader bias as often as I can; the questionable motives behind my rage or comfort when reading, how hard and how often I project my own life onto the protagonist, and sometimes even, to my own shame, onto the author. And I wonder how often I am so hungry to read something that does my feelings and my experience justice (knowing full well I’m the only one who can write that), that I start to be frustrated when a book fails to do so. I suppose I’m still working on my book, and a great way to procrastinate is to think about how other people are writing their own books, and all the things they should have done differently. It’s been a safe and reliable distraction. I’m not above it.' (Introduction)

Last amended 14 Nov 2022 13:05:43
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