When I was growing up, my homes kept moving—from Holland to the USA, Indonesia, Italy, the UK and Germany—a lifelong migrant and expatriate, I’m a native of nowhere who’s written all over the world.
My first book of poems, Sicilian Haiku—Migrant Shadows, will be published by Mad Bear Books in 2024, with all profits going to refugees and those who help them.
My first novel, Honor/Honour, first published in 2012, is a dark comic thriller about how people in diverse cultures—east, west, multi and between—are driven and damaged by different conceptions of right living and honor. It did quite well in the bestseller lists and was generously perhaps optimistically described as “an instant classic” (more kind words about it below).
I tend to work on loads of multiple projects in parallel: I’m working on an extended series of multi-genre books, The Dark Gospel, of which Sicilian Haiku—Migrant Voices is the first. The next—another novel, The Trashman—will be published soon. I’m also working on a book about the invasion of Ukraine, alomg came a war, with photos by the Kyiv-based Bogdana Bunn, and an extended sequence of poems: archipelagoes (memories of Java) as well as a book of Meditations by Philippe de Saint Maurice.
Critical praise for Honor/Honour:
Gillian Carey: “Ambitious, gripping, compelling, horrifying.”
James Watson Wood: “Sharp, stylish, masterful – a pleasure on every page.”
Scarlett Ong: “Intelligent, shocking, darkly funny, Honour is where love meets terror. Warm, compassionate, satirical and sharp, this page-turner will turn on lovers of intelligent literary thrillers and the films of Tarantino and the Coen brothers… But in its wit and intelligence it is closer to Spark, Proust and Nabokov.”
Mohammed Qayyum: “Hugely readable work of wit, art, and wisdom.”
You can buy Honour at:
Amazon Germany Amazon UK Amazon USA Barnes & Noble
Freddie Omm’s next thriller, The Trashman, will be published later this year.
Freddie Omm’s writer’s pages:
Freddie Omm’s translation of Wellen (Waves), a pioneering Impressionistic masterpiece by Eduard von Keyserling (a distant kinsman), is a work in progress. It is being published in installments by Mad Bear Books.
Freddie Omm, born in Holland, grew up in the USA, Indonesia and the UK, lifelong expatriate, native of nowhere, has written all over the world