Omar Sabbagh – författare

In this kaleidoscopic and engrossing novella, the reader is drawn into the shifting world of Beirut, “city of whores and city of dames”, when Yusuf, an inveterate observer of his native city, is given several unfinished stories by one of his most promising students and finds that his life’s drift is about to hit rough water …

This book-length study of an eminent, distinguished and influential poet and contemporary woman of letters integrates analysis and a honed interpretation of the near-total gamut of the oeuvre to-date of Professor Fiona Sampson. The study includes biographical insight and synthesizes its rigorous discussions of the dominant rubric of Professor Sampson’s poetic métier, her prose in different genres, and the literary practices of over a decades-long and much-lauded literary career.  This critical work finds and displays incisive and fruitful ways by which the oeuvre in question crosses boundaries in literary writing and practices with fertile results and evidences those cross-currents in a manner that indicates the trajectory of a sensibility or structure of feeling, one which though highly intelligent and self-aware is also deeply empathic. A lucid, coherent and compelling reading of Sampson’s main works makes this book a scintillating study and a much needed contribution to the current work being done on major contemporary poets and writers and, in particular, contemporary women figures, in the British and international literary scenes.

In his most personal collection yet, Omar Sabbagh brings a concentrated gaze to bear on turbulent emotions. Morning Lit is a deep and sustained exploration of fatherhood, marriage and bereavement: of love and its shadow side, which is loss. Crammed with symbolism, it is a work of maturity both emotional and poetic. — Fiona Sampson Omar Sabbagh offers his readers deeply contemplative—and even more deeply felt—windows into both the seemingly relentless tensions and nearly transcendent joys of family life. Sabbagh masterfully demonstrates the full range of his poetic voice and craftsmanship, choosing most often to approach profound tribulation and self-interrogation within precisely contained rhymes and rhythms while bursting effusively into wholly charming exaltations in celebration of his daughter. Here, nothing is valued more than kindness, yet, with its abundant references to philosophy, psychology, history, and economic theory, Morning Lit: Portals After Alia reminds us that being present and open to the struggles and wonders of our own lives requires every resource of mind and heart we have.— Kathleen Graber, author of The River Twice Here is a paean to fatherhood in all its terrifying joy and vulnerability. It evokes the gratitude of the born-again parent, the wonder of being programmed ‘to love unconditionally’, of being compelled to ‘agree, and agree, and agree’, and of acknowledging that one’s love is now one’s ‘only, final fear’. Luminous, tender and gently delirious, Omar Sabbagh’s poems celebrate an awakening into a new sacredness. — Arundhathi Subramaniam Bursting with thoughtful and ebullient verse [that] spills-over with warmth and joy at the birth of a daughter, Alia. Omar Sabbagh adds his distinctive voice to the literature of fatherhood.— Amy Wack, Poetry Editor, Seren Books

A thought-provoking collection that delves into the depths of human emotions, relationships, and the power of language and art, often depicting a sense of longing, loss, and the search for meaning. The poems highlight the consequences of missed opportunities, the weight of regret, and the realisation of one’s own limitations. And they explore the transformative power of love—the relationship between the poet and his daughter, Alia, being a recurring theme. Through rich imagery and introspective reflections, Omar Sabbagh invites readers to contemplate the complexities of existence. — Adam Wyeth, Associate Artist, Civic Theatre Dublin; It’s always gripping when a writer turns the textual mirror on himself and starts to reflect on his own identity. For Echo is both a highly original poetry collection and a fascinating self-portrait. In it, Omar Sabbagh uses poetry and prose to challenge and dissect his own psyche: an examination more immediate and intimate than any scenes from a life. If Sabbagh’s Echo is perhaps the ideal reader, in this book he allows us to see through an exceptional mind’s eye. There we glimpse the poet as he turns towards, and away from, the mirror. — Fiona Sampson

RIP is located in a world of loss.Waddah Faris was Omar Sabbagh’s maternal uncle. He was an artist, a nomad, a man who ‘embossed’ himself on those he knew, a person who ‘...when he walked into a room / God switched-on his camera’ (‘Charisma’). Above all, Waddah Faris was loved: ‘People loved you because they knew you, and knew, too, / that kindness for you was inevitable, a lit fuse. / You lived your life like a full-bodied wish, careless with your care,’ (‘Life With Style’). His loss is enormous and for the poet and his family that loss is deeply personal.Those dying in Gaza are so many that the particularity of death is too easily subsumed in overwhelm. We can hardly fathom the enormity of the daily horror. The loss of a whole people leaves us aghast and ‘...when it comes to a starless catastrophe / like this, and all your tools go numb,’ (‘Losing Vocab’) we need to ask what kind of world we are living in, how we got here and how we lend our support to the suffering.Moving between these two losses—each personal, each urgent, Omar Sabbagh asks us to care. He asks us to dare to look into the face of a child who, limbless, ‘smiles at this father’, who in the worst of worlds, continues to find joy, hope and love, ‘This child of sheer perfect music, blow after blow after blow.’ (‘This Child Of Utter Song’). He asks that we see, ‘...people / just like me—with needs and desires, with projects / and hopes and fears—dying.’ and ask ourselves, ‘Who will protect / them? Because only that is real.’ (‘The Delusion’)

This book-length study of an eminent, distinguished and influential poet and contemporary woman of letters integrates analysis and a honed interpretation of the near-total gamut of the oeuvre to-date of Professor Fiona Sampson. The study includes biographical insight and synthesizes its rigorous discussions of the dominant rubric of Professor Sampson’s poetic métier, her prose in different genres, and the literary practices of over a decades-long and much-lauded literary career.  This critical work finds and displays incisive and fruitful ways by which the oeuvre in question crosses boundaries in literary writing and practices with fertile results and evidences those cross-currents in a manner that indicates the trajectory of a sensibility or structure of feeling, one which though highly intelligent and self-aware is also deeply empathic. A lucid, coherent and compelling reading of Sampson’s main works makes this book a scintillating study and a much needed contribution to the current work being done on major contemporary poets and writers and, in particular, contemporary women figures, in the British and international literary scenes.

Linguistically dexterous, scintillating with intelligence and wit, and balancing incisive observation with deep compassion, the short fictions in Y Knots draw us into the lives of characters we feel completely involved with. Here we have a hall of mirrors in which the writer mines his soul for images that reflect the story. But in interrogating the self, what Omar Sabbagh produces is an engaging array of unique perspectives on all our souls.

It's Dubai, and all across the Miracle City its multitudinous inhabitants are preparing for Eid.Hakim, a Pakistani taxi driver is whizzing through the streets. Patrick, a Ugandan security guard has aspirations of becoming a writer. Farida, a Moroccan beautician is hoping for a fresh start. And finally, Saeed, a respected Emirati journalist has just arrived home from London.As the last few days of Ramadan pass, each is busy with their own story, yet unknown to them, the city is weaving them together.Told through a series of interlinked and moving short stories, Minutes from the Miracle City is a poetic tour-de-force, and offers a unique perspective of the virtuoso project that is Dubai.

Cedar: A Captivating Verse-Documentary Unveiling the Modern Lebanese Experience Delve into the tapestry of the modern and contemporary Lebanese experience with "Cedar" by Omar Sabbagh.

An interdisciplinary study of the Impressionist/early Modernist works of Conrad and Ford, this book aims to show how the represented temporalities (whether to do with past, present, future experience within and without the novels, or logical/structural relations of ‘before’ and ‘after’) are at the core of the won effects of both authors’ oeuvres. Looking at such well-known works as Nostromo, The Good Soldier, The Fifth Queen, Parade’s End, the study makes use of philosophy (historical and contemporary), theology, psychoanalysis, and other sources, to re-describe, unlock and display the fertile ways in which time and historical experience are both manumitted within the tales analysed, and, recursively, within their reading experience. Ultimately, the two senses of ‘making you see’, from Conrad’s iconic Preface, are used as gambits to understand the ways in which these novels are metaphysically vibrant, symbolically hopeful- as against the more common interpretation of metaphysical dissolution and (over-determined) failure.