Son of Sin

De: Omar Sakr

Narrado por: Hazem Shammas

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.

©2022 Omar Sakr (P)2022 W F Howes

Such a valuable story

A dazzling, lyrical coming of age story filled with heartbreak, realizations, and, ultimately, self acceptance and love. The poetic flow of this story pierced into my heart almost immediately, and I hung on to every word, every ounce of cruelty, longing, laughter, and revelation with such a endearment to our narrator. This felt so real, mainly because for so many, this story is real, this is a tribute and a call to so many lost, loving souls trying to find themselves and each other in our reality’s stormy seas. Easily one of the most beautiful and essential coming of age stories that I have ever read.