Arabic Language and Cultures with Powerful Stories Network at The University of Sydney Presents Omar Sakr and Safdar Ahmed in conversation with Assoc. Prof. Lucia Sorbera and Prof. Michael McDonnell

Join Omar Sakr and Safdar Ahmed in conversation with Assoc. Prof. Lucia Sorbera as they discuss their new book The Nightmare Sequence.

The Nightmare Sequence is a searing response to the atrocities in Gaza and beyond since October 2023. Heartbreaking and humane, it is a necessary portrait of the violence committed by Israel and its Western allies.

Through poetry and visual art, the award-winning Omar Sakr and Safdar Ahmed capture these historic injustices, while also critiquing the role of art and media – including their own – in this time. Born of collective suffering and despair, their collaboration interrogates the position of witness: the terrible and helpless distance of vision, the impact of being exposed to violence of this scale on a daily basis, and what it means to live in a society that is actively participating in the catastrophic destruction of Arabs and Muslims overseas.

With a foreword by Palestinian American poet George Abraham, The Nightmare Sequence is an insightful work of testimony that also considers how art is complicit in Empire. This transcendent book invokes the power of poetry and art to shift hearts and minds; it will serve as a vital record in decades to come.

About the speakers:

Omar Sakr is a poet and writer born in Western Sydney to Lebanese and Turkish Muslim migrants. He is the acclaimed author of the novel Son of Sin and three poetry collections, including The Lost Arabs, which won the 2020 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Poetry. His most recent collection, Non-Essential Work, was shortlisted for the Kenneth Slessor Prize and the ALS Gold Medal. His non-fiction work has been published widely, including in The Guardian, The Sydney Morning Herald and SBS Life.

Safdar Ahmed is an award-winning artist, writer, musician and cultural worker. His graphic novel Still Alive won the Multicultural NSW Award and was named Book of the Year in the 2022 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. Still Alive also won the 2022 Eve Pownall Award and a Gold Ledger in the 2022 Comic Arts Awards of Australia. Safdar is a founding member of the Refugee Art Project and a member of eleven, a collective of contemporary Muslim Australian artists, curators and writers.

Lucia Sorbera is Associate Professor and Chair of Discipline of Arabic Language and Cultures at the University of Sydney. She studies the colonial and post-colonial history of the Arab World and Africa, decolonial and Indigenous epistemologies, with a focus on women and gender. She is the author of Biography of a Revolution. The Feminist Roots of Human Rights in Egypt, published by University of California Press.

Michael McDonnell is Chair and Professor of History at the University of Sydney and has published widely on early American history, Native American history, and settler-colonial history. He is currently exploring ways to do more community-centred histories.

Event details:
Date: Wednesday 7 May 2025

Time: 6pm

Venue: Woolley Common Room, University of Sydney

RSVP: FREE event but registration is essential