Hip hop artiste cum poet and a leading stage personality
View(s):Omar Musa
Omar Musa knows where to find his muse. He once told an interviewer: ‘I’m not interested in art that doesn’t really deal with life, and death, and madness. But I always try to find redemption and light within that, somehow.”
A Malaysian-Australian rapper, poet and author from Queanbeyan, Musa is a former winner of the Australian Poetry Slam and Indian Ocean Poetry Slam.
His international hip-hop tours have included supporting legendary poet/singer Gil Scott- Heron in Germany. Omar has released three hip hop albums and two poetry books, including Parang, 2013.
His critically acclaimed debut novel Here Come the Dogs was long listed for the Miles Franklin Literary Award and he was named one of the Sydney Morning Herald’s Young Novelists of the Year in 2015.
Describing Omar Musa’s debut novel,‘Here Come the Dogs,’ fellow Australian author Christos Tsiolkas said: ‘Omar Musa’s writing is tough and tender, harsh and poetic, raw and beautiful, it speaks to how we live and dream now.
This novel broke my heart a little but it also made me ecstatic at the possibilities of what the best writing can do.’
Meera Syal
Meera Syal famously once described the place where she grew up, a mining village in the West Midlands, as “a cross between ‘Twin Peaks’ and ‘Crossroads.’” The daughter of Asian parents, growing up in modern Britain, Syal never had to look very far to find the stories that have made her name.
She is today one of the UK’s most acclaimed actors and writers of stage and screen. She starred in the hit series The Kumars at No.42 and recently in the BBC film of David Williams’ The Boy in the Dress.
She is currently in David Hare’s play, Behind the Beautiful Forevers at the National Theatre, and in the latest series of Broadchurch.
Meera Syal is also highly regarded for her funny, sharp and provocative fiction. Her earlier novels are ‘Anita and Me’ and ‘Life Isn’t All Ha HaHeeHee.’ Her latest novel is ‘The House of the Hidden Mothers.’
‘Anita and Me,’ perhaps her most famous book, is semi-autobiographical and set in a small West Midlands mining village much like the one she grew up in.
It tells the story of the feisty Meena, and how this daughter of Punjabi immigrants is seduced by 1970s pop and youth culture.
In a recent interview with The Guardian, where she talks about the book being adapted for stage,Syal said: “Every time you sit down [in Asian families],” she explains, “and someone opens their mouth, 100 Bollywood films’ worth of lives fall out.”
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