WINNER of both the MILES FRANKIN LITERARY AWARD and the VICTORIAN PREMIER AWARD
'An impressive, urgent novel by a talented and courageous writer' Mohsin Hamid
After many years abroad, Harun and Roz return to Malaysian Borneo for the funeral of their palm-oil baron father, Yusuf - and to reckon with their inheritance. Yusuf might be a hero to many, but his children know that not only has he built the family's immense wealth by destroying huge tracts of rainforest, but also that he was involved in the violent disappearance of a man who stood in his way.
Harun is a successful tech entrepreneur in Los Angeles while Roz is an artist struggling to stay afloat in Sydney, and both are determined to return something their father stole from the forests of their homeland. In their quest for redemption they grapple with the legacy of power and corruption and are haunted - by the ghosts of colonialism, the ghosts of family, the ghosts of language, and the ghosts of the forest itself.
A trailblazing journey across the globe, Fierceland is a language-bending story that weaves the past and the present into an emotionally powerful family saga that plays out at a mythical scale.
'The forest may be disappearing, but in Musa's words it still grows: fierce, alive, untameable' Guardian Australia
Urgent and unforgettable - Elle
An impressive, urgent novel by a talented and courageous writer - Mohsin Hamid, author of EXIT WEST
Fierceland is a psychologically layered and storied reckoning with the world we have inherited - Miles Franklin Award Judges
Fierceland glows with energy and its mosaic of time and place, myth, game and imagination is reminiscent of the expansive work of Richard Powers. Fierceland is a novel of inheritances: ecological, historical, familial. Some cannot be undone. The challenge is to imagine futures within them. The forest may be disappearing, but in Musa's words it still grows: fierce, alive, untameable. - Seren Heyman-Griffiths, Guardian
Omar Musa writes with great energy, a poetic force. Fierceland is a time-travelling magical tale, a playful anti-colonial novel for our times . . . Do not sleep on the fierce talents of Omar Musa - Raymond Antrobus, author and poet
Fierceland is a majestic piece of epic narrative work. Omar Musa skillfully weaves various scenes, lives, viewpoints and times, connects different continents to concentrate on the modern history of Malaysia . . . Fierceland shook me to the core as an Asian. It forced me to look at Malaysia and the world and ponder the future in ways I never have - Bora Chung, author of CURSED BUNNY
Riveting and expansive, a profound yet intimate exploration of environmental catastrophe - Shannon Chakraborty, author of the Daevabad trilogy
Some novels arrive as whispers, asking politely to be read. Omar Musa's Fierceland crashes through like a storm. Fierceland is not content to simply describe Borneo. It makes the land an active presence, alive with spirits, ghosts, myths and political wounds. Reading Fierceland feels like walking through a jungle where every shadow could either save or consume you . . . It is impossible to ignore Omar's stylistic restlessness. Known for moving between poetry, hip-hop, theatre and visual art, he infuses Fierceland with the rhythm of all those forms. - The Malaysian Reserve
Fierceland is a visceral symphony - part elegy, part reckoning - where land, blood, and memory speak in equal measure. Omar Musa's prose pulses with ancestral weight and raw tenderness, pulling us into a rainforest alive with ghosts, poetry, and resistance. This is not just a novel; it is an invocation, a reclaiming, a haunting call to awaken. - Etaf Rum, author of A WOMAN IS NO MAN and EVIL EYE
Fierceland takes the descriptive verve of Musa's poetry and welds it to a celebration of the natural world despoiled by Yusuf's boundless ambition. He runs real voltage through the damaged personalities of Roz and Harun as they come to terms with their father's inheritance. - The Saturday Paper
