Jump to content

Omar El Akkad

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Not to be confused with Omar Aggad.
Omar El Akkad
عمر العقاد
Born1982 (age 42–43)
Cairo, Egypt
Alma materQueen's University at Kingston
Occupation(s)Journalist, author
AwardsGiller Prize (2021)

Omar El Akkad (Arabic: عمر العقاد, romanized: ʿUmar al-ʿAqqād; born 1982) is an Egyptian-American novelist and journalist [1] whose novel What Strange Paradise was the winner of the 2021 Giller Prize.[2][3]

Early life and education

[edit]

Omar El Akkad was born in Cairo, Egypt, and grew up in Doha, Qatar.[4] He attended an American international school in Egypt.[1] When he was 16 years old, he moved to Canada with his family, completing high school in Montreal and university at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. He has a computer science degree.[5]

Career

[edit]

For ten years, he was a staff reporter for The Globe and Mail, where he covered the war in Afghanistan, military trials at Guantanamo Bay and the Arab Spring in Egypt.[4] He was most recently a correspondent for the western United States, where he covered Black Lives Matter.[6]

His first novel, American War, was published in 2017.[7][8] It received positive reviews from critics; The New York Times book critic Michiko Kakutani compared it favourably to Cormac McCarthy's The Road and Philip Roth's novel The Plot Against America. She wrote that "melodramatic" dialogue could be forgiven by the use of details that makes the fictional future "seem alarmingly real".[7] The Globe and Mail called it "a masterful debut".[9] The novel was named a shortlisted finalist for the 2017 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize,[10] and for the 2018 amazon.ca First Novel Award, and won a Kobo Emerging Writer Prize.[11][12]

In November 2019 BBC News listed American War on a list of the 100 most influential novels.[13]

On November 8, 2021, El Akkad won the Giller Prize for What Strange Paradise.[14] The novel was selected for the 2022 edition of Canada Reads. It was defended by Tareq Hadhad.[15] The book follows migration and what is at the core of the global crisis. It follows Amir, a Syrian boy who is the only survivor of a migrant boat sinking.[16]

He has also written the foreword to Yasmine Seale's The Annotated Arabian Nights: Tales from 1001 Nights,[17] the most recent English translation of the classic Middle Eastern story collection (and the only complete English translation from the original text done by a woman).[18]

In 2025, El Akkad published One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This about the war on Gaza.[19] It was awarded the 2025 National Book Award for Nonfiction.[20]

Awards

[edit]

Personal life

[edit]

He lives with his wife and children in Portland, Oregon, United States.[23]

He is a Muslim.[24]

Bibliography

[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ a b El Akkad, Omar (2025). One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This. 243: Canongate. ISBN 978-1837264186.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
  2. ^ Anthony, Milton (February 21, 2025). ""There's a good chance this will wreck my career": Omar El Akkad on his new book about Palestine, Israel and Western hypocrisy". Toronto Life. Retrieved August 5, 2025.
  3. ^ "Omar El Akkad wins $100K Giller Prize for 'What Strange Paradise'". CTV News. The Canadian Press. November 9, 2021. Archived from the original on November 9, 2021.
  4. ^ a b "Omar El Akkad". Penguin Random House. Archived from the original on April 28, 2018. Retrieved July 14, 2017.
  5. ^ "Omar El Akkad - Interview". BookPage.com. April 2017. Archived from the original on February 7, 2019. Retrieved July 14, 2017.
  6. ^ "A Conversation with Omar El Akkad, Author, American War". Unbound Worlds. May 19, 2017. Archived from the original on July 17, 2018. Retrieved July 14, 2017.
  7. ^ a b Kakutani, Michiko (March 27, 2017). "A Haunting Debut Looks Ahead to a Second American Civil War". The New York Times. Archived from the original on September 15, 2019. Retrieved April 18, 2017.
  8. ^ Garcia-Navarro, Lulu. "'American War' Explores The Universality Of Revenge". NPR.org. Archived from the original on October 29, 2019. Retrieved April 16, 2017.
  9. ^ Hill, Lawrence (March 31, 2017). "Omar El Akkad's American War, reviewed: A masterful debut". The Globe and Mail. Archived from the original on November 8, 2019. Retrieved September 2, 2017.
  10. ^ Balser, Erin (September 27, 2017). "David Chariandy, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson among finalists for $50K Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize". CBC Books. Archived from the original on January 3, 2018.
  11. ^ Samraweet Yohannes (June 19, 2018). "Omar El Akkad, author of American War, among winners of $10K Kobo Emerging Writer Prizes". CBC News. Archived from the original on August 27, 2018. Retrieved June 11, 2019.
  12. ^ B. Patrick, Ryan (April 28, 2018). "Sharon Bala, Omar El Akkad among finalists for $40K Amazon.ca First Novel Award". CBC Books. Archived from the original on July 25, 2019.
  13. ^ "Margaret Atwood, L.M. Montgomery, Carol Shields featured on BBC's list of 100 novels that shaped the world". CBC News. November 8, 2019. Archived from the original on November 8, 2019. Retrieved November 9, 2019. Omar El Akkad's American War is the most recently published Canadian novel on the BBC's list. The journalist's debut book came out in 2017 and won the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize for fiction, a $10,000 award. It was also featured on Canada Reads 2018, when it was defended by Tahmoh Penikett.
  14. ^ "Omar El Akkad wins $100K Scotiabank Giller Prize for novel What Strange Paradise". CBC Books. Archived from the original on November 10, 2021. Retrieved November 10, 2021.
  15. ^ "Meet the Canada Reads 2022 contenders". CBC Books. January 26, 2022. Archived from the original on February 10, 2022.
  16. ^ Iglesias, Gabino (July 25, 2021). "'What Strange Paradise' Focuses On The Human Stories At The Heart Of A Crisis". NPR. Archived from the original on November 28, 2021. Retrieved May 28, 2024.
  17. ^ Horta, Paulo Lemos, ed. (November 16, 2021). The Annotated Arabian Nights. Translated by Seale, Yasmine. New York: National Geographic Books. ISBN 978-1-63149-363-8.
  18. ^ "A new English version of "The Arabian Nights" is the first by a woman". The Economist. November 27, 2021.
  19. ^ Nayeri, Dina (February 14, 2025). "One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad review – a cathartic savaging of western hypocrisy over Gaza". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved March 23, 2025.
  20. ^ "Winners of the 2025 National Book Awards Announced". National Book Awards. National Book Foundation. November 14, 2025. Retrieved November 14, 2025.
  21. ^ a b c "What Strange Paradise". Omarelakkad. Archived from the original on July 11, 2023. Retrieved July 11, 2023.
  22. ^ Limbong, Andrew (November 20, 2025). "Here are the winners of the 2025 National Book Awards". NPR. Retrieved November 21, 2025.
  23. ^ "Omar El Akkad". Eden Mills Writers' Festival. Archived from the original on September 26, 2018. Retrieved June 27, 2018.
  24. ^ El Akkad, Omar (September 17, 2017). "I've always been an Arab. It was only when I moved to the US I realised I was 'brown'". The Guardian. Guardian Media Group. Retrieved September 17, 2025.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Omar_El_Akkad&oldid=1323618413"