Omar El Akkad
Omar El Akkad | |
|---|---|
| عمر العقاد | |
 El Akkad in 2025 | |
| Born | 1982 (age 43–44) Cairo, Egypt |
| Alma mater | Queen's University at Kingston |
| Occupations |
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| Notable work |
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| Awards | |
Omar El Akkad (Arabic: عمر العقاد, romanized: ʿUmar al-ʿAqqād; born 1982) is an Egyptian-Canadian-American novelist and journalist.[1] A former staff reporter for The Globe and Mail, he is the author of the novels American War (2017) and What Strange Paradise (2021), and of the nonfiction book One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This (2025).[2] What Strange Paradise won the 2021 Scotiabank Giller Prize, and One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This won the 2025 National Book Award for Nonfiction.[3][4]
Early life and education
El Akkad was born in Cairo and grew up in Doha, Qatar.[1] He moved to Canada as a teenager with his family.[1] He studied computer science at Queen's University at Kingston, where he worked at the student newspaper The Queen's Journal.[5]
Career
El Akkad worked for about a decade as a staff reporter for The Globe and Mail.[2] His reporting included the war in Afghanistan, military proceedings at Guantanamo Bay, and the Arab Spring in Egypt.[2] He later covered the Black Lives Matter movement in Ferguson, Missouri.[6] His journalism received a National Newspaper Award for investigative reporting and the Goff Penny Memorial Prize for young Canadian journalists.[7]
His debut novel, American War, was published in 2017.[8] The novel won the Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize and the Oregon Book Award for fiction, and it was shortlisted for the 2017 Atwood Gibson Writers' Trust Fiction Prize.[9][7][10] In 2019, the BBC included American War on its list of 100 novels that shaped the world.[11]
His second novel, What Strange Paradise, was published in 2021.[12] It won the 2021 Giller Prize, the 2022 Oregon Book Award for fiction, and a 2022 Pacific Northwest Book Award.[3][13][14]
In 2025, El Akkad published his first nonfiction book, One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This.[15] The book won the 2025 National Book Award for Nonfiction.[4]
El Akkad's books have been translated into 13 languages.[1]
Personal life
In a 2017 essay for The Guardian, El Akkad wrote about being Arab and Muslim in the U.S.[16] He lives in Portland, Oregon.[17]
Bibliography
- What Strange Paradise
- One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This
References
- ^ a b c d "Omar El Akkad". National Book Foundation. Retrieved March 26, 2026.
- ^ a b c "Omar El Akkad". Writers' Trust of Canada. Retrieved March 26, 2026.
- ^ a b "Omar El Akkad Wins the 2021 Scotiabank Giller Prize". Giller Prize. November 8, 2021. Retrieved March 26, 2026.
- ^ a b "Winners of the 2025 National Book Awards Announced". National Book Foundation. November 14, 2025. Retrieved March 26, 2026.
- ^ "Omar El Akkad Scotiabank Giller Prize winner". Queen's Alumni Review. February 11, 2022. Retrieved March 26, 2026.
- ^ "REBROADCAST: Author Omar El Akkad on "American War"". Oregon Public Broadcasting. May 2, 2022. Retrieved March 26, 2026.
- ^ a b "The Archive Project: 2021 Oregon Book Awards". Oregon Public Broadcasting. May 24, 2021. Retrieved March 26, 2026.
- ^ Kakutani, Michiko (March 27, 2017). "A Haunting Debut Looks Ahead to a Second American Civil War". The New York Times. Retrieved March 26, 2026.
- ^ Yohannes, Samraweet (June 19, 2018). "Omar El Akkad, author of American War, among winners of $10K Kobo Emerging Writer Prizes". CBC Books. Retrieved March 26, 2026.
- ^ "Atwood Gibson Writers' Trust Fiction Prize". Writers' Trust of Canada. Retrieved March 26, 2026.
- ^ "Margaret Atwood, L.M. Montgomery, Carol Shields featured on BBC's list of 100 novels that shaped the world". CBC Books. November 8, 2019. Retrieved March 26, 2026.
- ^ Iglesias, Gabino (July 25, 2021). "'What Strange Paradise' Focuses On The Human Stories At The Heart Of A Crisis". NPR. Retrieved March 26, 2026.
- ^ "Announcing the 2022 Oregon Book Awards Winners". Literary Arts. April 25, 2022. Retrieved March 26, 2026.
- ^ "2022 Awards". Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association. Retrieved March 26, 2026.
- ^ 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. Retrieved March 26, 2026.
- ^ 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. Retrieved September 17, 2025.
- ^ "Scotiabank Giller Prize Spotlight: Omar El Akkad". Giller Prize. Retrieved March 26, 2026.
- ^ "American War". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved March 26, 2026.
- ^ "American War by Omar El Akkad". Penguin Random House Canada. Retrieved March 26, 2026.
- ^ "What Strange Paradise by Omar El Akkad". Penguin Random House. Retrieved March 26, 2026.
- ^ "What Strange Paradise". Penguin Random House Canada. Retrieved March 26, 2026.
- ^ "Winners of the 2025 National Book Awards Announced". National Book Foundation. November 14, 2025. Retrieved March 26, 2026.
- ^ "One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad". Penguin Random House Canada. Retrieved March 26, 2026.
External links
