Fierceland (Omar Musa, Penguin)

Fierceland is a spellbinding novel by multi-hyphenate artist Omar Musa (Killernova), following his widely acclaimed and Miles Franklin–longlisted debut, Here Come the Dogs. In this self-proclaimed ghost story set across decades and continents, the novel’s timeline orbits around twin events: a week in 1998 that forever changes the lives of siblings Rozana and Harun, and the 2018 funeral of their father, Yusuf, a palm oil mogul. Oscillating through various perspectives, Fierceland gives voice to those silenced by the turning tides of colonialism, steadily propelling the plot towards its inevitable conclusion. Musa navigates generational inheritances and collective responsibilities, asking what one might owe as a descendant of people who have caused wide-reaching harm, and how we navigate these relationships on a personal level. Musa’s prose is a love letter to Borneo in many ways. The writing is often intentionally claustrophobic, mimicking the humid mugginess of the tropics while conveying a yearning homesickness for a home that may no longer exist. This striking novel is a bold addition to the literary landscape, using the specificity of its Sabahan setting and characters to explore universally resonant themes, particularly through its entanglement with the long-standing networks of global colonialism. Generously written and richly layered, Fierceland is a novel to be savoured, pairing well with the formal experimentation of Raeden Richardson’s The Degenerates and André Dao’s Anam.

Books+Publishing reviewer: Marina Sano is a Japanese and Australian reviewer, editor, and bookstore owner. She co-founded Amplify Bookstore and is an advocate for more diverse and representative publishing. Books+Publishing is Australia’s number-one source of pre-publication book reviews.

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