Omar Sabbagh is a widely published poet, writer and critic. His poetry and prose, critical and creative, have appeared (and often repeatedly) in such venues as: Poetry Review, PN Review, Poetry Ireland Review, The Reader Magazine, The Warwick Review, (T&F) POEM, Kenyon Review, Agenda, Poetry Wales, Banipal, Stand, (T&F) Wasafiri, The Wolf, Envoi, Lighthouse, Rusted Radishes, The London Magazine, The Moth, (T&F) Life Writing, (T&F) New Writing, (T&F) Prose Studies, New Welsh Review, Acumen, Two Thirds North, (EUP) Victoriographies, The George Eliot Review, The Chesterton Review, Nexus: The International Henry Miller Journal, and elsewhere. Two of his extant poetry collections are: My Only Ever Oedipal Complaint and The Square Root of Beirut (Cinnamon Press, 2010/12). His fourth collection, To The Middle of Love, was published with Cinnamon Press in February 2017. His fifth collection, But It Was an Important Failure was published with Cinnamon Press, again, in February 2020. In January 2014 Rodopi (now Brill) published his monograph (based broadly on his PhD): From Sight through to In-Sight: Time, Narrative and Subjectivity in Conrad and Ford. His first book-length work of fiction, a Beirut novella, Via Negativa: A Parable of Exile, was published with Liquorice Fish Books in March 2016. By turns, a Dubai novella, Minutes from the Miracle City was published with Fairlight Books in July 2019. He has also published much short fiction, some of it prize-winning. His two latest book-length publications are a single-author study of the oeuvre of Professor Fiona Sampson, Reading Fiona Sampson: A Study in Contemporary Poetry and Poetics, published with Anthem Press in June 2020. And a collection of previously published essays and papers on English literary subjects, classic and contemporary, To My Mind or Kinbotes is also forthcoming within Summer 2020 (Whisk(e)y Tit Books, 2020).
Born of Lebanese parents in London in 1981, after a stellar school life he went to Oxford as an undergraduate, studying PPE. From 2003-2004 he completed an MA in English Literature at KCL, where he achieved a high Distinction and came third out of a class of fifty-five. In 2005 he began a PhD in English Literature at Cambridge, under the supervision of Professor Stefan Collini. In Spring 2006 he resigned said PhD ‘to become a poet’ – so sage in this! He completed a second MA in Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmith’s College, London – though half-way through beginning a PhD in English Literature at KCL, under Professor Max Saunders. By Autumn 2007 he’d safely dispatched said second MA, and by Winter 2010/11 he’d passed his PhD. For the academic years 2011-13 he was Visiting Assistant Professor in English Literature and Creative Writing at the American University of Beirut (AUB) – the alma mater where his parents first met. He completed a 3rd MA in Philosophy at Birkbeck College, University of London, by August 2014, and that Fall began teaching at the American University in Dubai (AUD), where he still teaches, Associate Professor of English there.