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Omar El Akkad

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Omar El Akkad
Born1982 (age 41–42)
Cairo, Egypt
Occupation(s)Journalist, author

Omar El Akkad (born 1982) is an Egyptian-Canadian novelist and journalist, whose novel What Strange Paradise was the winner of the 2021 Giller Prize.[1]

Early life and education

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Omar El Akkad was born in Cairo, Egypt, and grew up in Doha, Qatar.[2] When he was 16 years old, he moved to Canada, completing high school in Montreal and university at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. He has a computer science degree.[3]

Career

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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.[2] He was most recently a correspondent for the western United States, where he covered Black Lives Matter.[4]

His first novel, American War, was published in 2017.[5][6] 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."[8] The novel was named a shortlisted finalist for the 2017 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize,[9] and for the 2018 amazon.ca First Novel Award, and won a Kobo Emerging Writer Prize.[10][11]

In November 2019 BBC News listed American War on a list of the 100 most influential novels.[12]

In 2021, El Akkad appeared on the podcast Storybound.[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]

In 2022, Omar El Akkad appeared on the podcast, The Literary City with Ramjee Chandran to talk about "What Strange Paradise."

Awards

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  • Winner of the 2021 Giller prize[17]
  • Winner of the Pacific Northwest Book award[18]
  • Chosen as the best book of the year by The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Globe.[19]

Personal life

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He lives with his wife and daughter in Portland, Oregon.[20]

Bibliography

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References

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  1. ^ Adina Bresge, "Omar El Akkad wins $100K Giller Prize for 'What Strange Paradise'" Archived 2021-11-09 at the Wayback Machine. CTV News, November 8, 2021.
  2. ^ a b "Omar El Akkad | Penguin Random House". www.penguinrandomhouse.com. Archived from the original on 2018-04-28. Retrieved 2017-07-14.
  3. ^ "Omar El Akkad - Interview". BookPage.com. Archived from the original on 2019-02-07. Retrieved 2017-07-14.
  4. ^ "A Conversation with Omar El Akkad, Author, American War - Unbound Worlds". Unbound Worlds. 2017-05-19. Archived from the original on 2018-07-17. Retrieved 2017-07-14.
  5. ^ Kakutani, Michiko (27 March 2017). "A Haunting Debut Looks Ahead to a Second American Civil War". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2019-09-15. Retrieved 2017-04-18.
  6. ^ Garcia-Navarro, Lulu. "'American War' Explores The Universality Of Revenge". NPR.org. Archived from the original on 2019-10-29. Retrieved 2017-04-16.
  7. ^ Kakutani, Michiko (2017-03-27). "A Haunting Debut Looks Ahead to a Second American Civil War". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 2019-09-15. Retrieved 2017-07-02.
  8. ^ "Omar El Akkad's American War, reviewed: A masterful debut". The Globe and Mail. 2017-03-31. Archived from the original on 2019-11-08. Retrieved 2017-09-02.
  9. ^ "David Chariandy, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson among finalists for $50K Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize" Archived 2018-01-03 at the Wayback Machine. CBC Books, September 27, 2017
  10. ^ Samraweet Yohannes (2018-06-19). "Omar El Akkad, author of American War, among winners of $10K Kobo Emerging Writer Prizes". CBC News. Archived from the original on 2018-08-27. Retrieved 2019-06-11.
  11. ^ "Sharon Bala, Omar El Akkad among finalists for $40K Amazon.ca First Novel Award" Archived 2019-07-25 at the Wayback Machine. CBC Books, April 28, 2018.
  12. ^ "Margaret Atwood, L.M. Montgomery, Carol Shields featured on BBC's list of 100 novels that shaped the world". CBC News. 2019-11-08. Archived from the original on 2019-11-08. Retrieved 2019-11-09. 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.
  13. ^ "Announcing Season 4 of the Storybound Podcast". 4 June 2021. Archived from the original on 10 June 2021. Retrieved June 10, 2021.
  14. ^ "Omar El Akkad wins $100K Scotiabank Giller Prize for novel What Strange Paradise". Archived from the original on November 10, 2021. Retrieved November 10, 2021.
  15. ^ "Meet the Canada Reads 2022 contenders" Archived 2022-02-10 at the Wayback Machine. CBC Books, January 26, 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. ^ "What Strange Paradise". Omarelakkad. Archived from the original on 2023-07-11. Retrieved 2023-07-11.
  18. ^ "What Strange Paradise". Omarelakkad. Archived from the original on 2023-07-11. Retrieved 2023-07-11.
  19. ^ "What Strange Paradise". Omarelakkad. Archived from the original on 2023-07-11. Retrieved 2023-07-11.
  20. ^ "Omar El Akkad | Eden Mills Writers' Festival". Eden Mills Writers' Festival. Archived from the original on 2018-09-26. Retrieved 2018-06-27.
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