UQP acquires new collection from prize-winning poet Omar Sakr
21 March 2022
UQP is delighted to announce that we’ve acquired a new poetry collection from Omar Sakr. Sakr’s previous collection, The Lost Arabs, won the Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Poetry, was shortlisted for a number of prizes, and rights were sold in the US.
Omar’s much-anticipated follow-up, Non-Essential Work, delves deep into his loves and losses to create a riveting literary experience. Asking questions of timeliness and timelessness, ranging between the present and the past, Non-Essential Work is an innovative and wide-ranging volume that showcases a poet unquestionably in his prime.
Omar Sakr says: ‘The past few years have been so tumultuous, personally, nationally, globally – this collection is a testament to what we’ve gone through and I couldn’t ask for a better publisher than UQP to bring it into the world.’
Publisher Aviva Tuffield says: ‘Omar is such a talented poet that it is an honour for UQP to be publishing a new collection from him. He is a poet who bears witness to the world’s pain, and doesn’t shy away from revealing his own personal losses – yet this collection is also full of love, desire, and sex. There is so much to admire in Non-Essential Work and I know readers and critics will concur.’
About Omar Sakr
Omar Sakr is an award-winning Arab Australian poet, born of Lebanese and Turkish Muslim migrants. His debut collection, These Wild Houses (Cordite Books, 2017) was shortlisted for the Kenneth Slessor Prize, and the Judith Wright Calanthe Award. His second collection, The Lost Arabs (University of Queensland Press, 2019), won the 2020 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards for Poetry and was shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, the John Bray Poetry Award, and the Colin Roderick Award. It was also published in North America by Andrews McMeel Publishing.
Omar’s poetry has been published in English, Arabic, and Spanish, in numerous journals and anthologies including: The Academy of American Poets, Epiphany Literary Journal, Prairie Schooner, Griffith Review, Mizna, Overland, Meanjin, Peril, Cordite Poetry Review, Contemporary Australian Poetry, The New Arab, and Circulo de Poesía. His debut novel, Son of Sin (Affirm Press), was published in March 2022. Omar has performed his work nationally and internationally. He lives in Sydney.
