Omar El Akkad @omarelakkad Twitter profile

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Omar El Akkad

1 year

For the past year or so, we've been working on a show about the uncertainty of living in the Anthropocene, and what the world might look like when so many of the things we've taken for granted start to disappear. Without. Launching on June 7th.

‎Without on Apple Podcasts

‎Society & Culture · 2024

podcasts.apple.com

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

8 months

One day, when it's safe, when there's no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it's too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this.

Muhammad Smiry 🇵🇸

@MuhammadSmiry

8 months

This is Gaza.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

8 months

This is genocide, This is what genocide looks like. Whatever you thought you'd do or say in moments of historical atrocity, however brave you imagined you'd be, you have your answer.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

6 months

If any Western journalist was subjected to this horror, every reporter and media organization would condemn it. There would be no hiding behind some convenient interpretation of objectivity or neutrality because everyone would suddenly remember that silence is neither.

Ali Hashem علي هاشم

@alihashem_tv

6 months

The son of our colleague Wael Dahdouh, Hamza, was killed in an Israeli strike along with journalist Mustafa Thuraya. Wael lost his wife, two of his children, and a granddaughter a few weeks ago. May God be with you Wael, RIP Hamza.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

4 years

I don’t know if the writing world needs another American Dirt thread, but I got conned by the folks behind this book’s marketing and I’m mad about it, so for whatever it’s worth, here’s some details about how this thing was presented to the world…

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

4 years

And all of this because some publisher decided this book had to be a phenomenon at any cost. I hope these folks are aware of how much long-term damage they’ve done, and I’m sorry I helped them do it.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

6 years

I will say this over and over and over again: a human being who follows these kinds of orders will follow any orders. A person who can be made to do this to a child can be made to do anything.

southpaw

@nycsouthpaw

6 years

A male US officer falsely told a 10-year-old she could see her mother for an hour at 6:00p. The child was held in a windowless, constantly lit facility where she couldn’t determine the time of day. When she asked the officer for the time, he said he wasn’t permitted to tell her.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

4 years

As a result, they’ve wiped any trace of the original review from their web site. A somewhat forgettable book that in any other year would have come and gone is now the subject of attention that isn’t being given to countless authors who deserve it more.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

4 years

BookPage has a no-negative-review policy. So I found the one thing the book did well – it’s fast-paced – and wrote about that. A few weeks later, I learned the marketing copy was all bullshit. There is no personal connection. The author’s husband immigrated here from… Ireland.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

3 years

It is important that you read these names and look at these faces and consider what it means that no one will be held accountable for killing these children.

Matthieu Aikins

@mattaikins

3 years

Three young girls were killed in the strike, according to their family: Hayat, 2, Somaya, 3, and Malika, 3. Family photo collage by the Independent. 7, 8, 9/10

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

4 years

Through very careful language, the marketing copy for American Dirt implied that the author not only had a personal connection to the material, but that her husband himself had an even more direct connection, being an illegal immigrant himself.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

3 years

For the last two months, I've experienced the greatest honour of my career, to be mentioned in the same breath as Cheluchi, Miriam, Jordan and Angélique, as well as the exceptional authors on this year's Giller longlist, any of whom could have easily taken home the award.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

4 years

A couple of months ago, BookPage asked me to review American Dirt. The advance copy arrived with a letter from the publisher, which in hindsight is honestly one of the more disingenuous things I’ve ever read.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

4 years

When I found out, I rewrote the review. The folks at BookPage had a meeting of their own, and decided they too had been taken for a ride. But they wouldn’t run my new review, because it violates their no-negative-review policy.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

3 years

I wrote a novel called What Strange Paradise. It's a repurposed fable of sorts. It comes out on July 20, 2021.

What Strange Paradise by Omar El Akkad: 9781984899248 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR • From the widely acclaimed, bestselling author of American War—a beautifully written, unrelentingly dramatic, and profoundly moving novel...

www.penguinrandomhouse.com

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

2 years

I wish I could go back a quarter-century and give this book to 16-year-old me, newly arrived in Canada, utterly lost and unanchored. What a brilliant, honest accounting of the desire to be and belong in many different worlds at once.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

3 years

I wrote a piece about how poorly prepared most of the world is for the coming spike in climate refugees.

Opinion: The climate refugees are coming. Countries and international law aren’t ready for them

For generations, our approach to asylum has centred on war and political persecution, not natural disaster. Unless we change that soon, mass migrations to the developed world will end in violence

www.theglobeandmail.com

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

2 years

Today I was looking through an old yearbook for the first time in a quarter-century, and I was reminded of what a strange and unique thing it was to be in high school during the early days of the internet, when pretty well nobody had any idea what they were doing.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

7 years

A couple of years ago, I wrote this about Florida and climate change.

Come hell or high water: The disaster scenario that is South Florida

‘Sooner or later, we’ll have to move. Most of the population will have to move.’

www.theglobeandmail.com

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

7 months

"Vote for the administration that endorsed and bankrolled a genocide because the alternative will be even worse" is as total an indictment of the American political infrastructure as I've witnessed in my lifetime.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

4 years

As a final, devastating shot on its way out, the Trump administration has ruined comedy for me. Because there will never be anything funnier than that Four Seasons thing. Never.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

6 years

I've tried not to post much about Canada Reads, because the format is stressful for all authors involved and anything we say can be construed as campaigning, but I need to tell you that Cherie Dimaline wrote one of the most powerful, beautiful books I've ever read.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

1 year

Every word of this is required reading. Sally Hayden has done some of the best reporting on the grotesquerie of privilege and cruelty for which we use the shorthand "migrant crisis," including in her truly excellent book, "My Fourth Time, We Drowned."

How has the mass drowning of people become normalised?

The potentially hundreds of people who drowned this week off southern Greece are victims of the world’s inequality

www.irishtimes.com

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

3 years

Such wonderful news to wake up to, and absolutely incredible company to be in. Congratulations to these brilliant writers.

Scotiabank Giller Prize

@GillerPrize

3 years

We are pleased to introduce the 2021 #ScotiabankGillerPrize longlist. Congratulations to all of the authors! #GillerPrize #CravingCanLit

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

7 years

Her writing changed my life and this is evidence she knows I exist and I want to brag about it.

Margaret E Atwood

@MargaretAtwood

7 years

This is a very thoughtful and thorough novel.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

6 years

The folks at the University of Alabama's Honors College are hosting me this week, and have been so, so kind. I arrived at a reception here tonight and found these cookies waiting for me.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

7 years

The night before my daughter was born, I did a reading at @CityLightsBooks . Now she's finally old enough to wear the onesie they gave me.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

4 years

@laurenbanka Thank you so much for taking the time to review it. Elliott Bay is one of the most beautiful bookstores I've ever visited, and your coworkers were very patient with an author who at that point had done maybe two bookstore events in his life.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

9 months

"One of the most powerful military forces on Earth has no choice but to slaughter members of an imprisoned civilian population so that justice can prevail" must be such a liberating position to take. Just complete moral weightlessness.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

6 years

American War was published one year ago today.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

7 years

Sorry for putting the book tour (and everything else) on hold, but this lady showed up early and I don't want to hang out with anybody else

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

2 years

It's such a wonderful thing that every year the public broadcaster puts so much effort into a show that's essentially just a conversation about literature. Honoured to be in the company of these exceptional writers.

CBC Books

@cbcbooks

2 years

#CanadaReads 2022 is here! Meet this year's panellists and the books they will champion!

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

4 years

Sonny Mehta, the kindest and most gifted editor I’ve ever known and the man to whom I owe my literary career, has died. The way he could diagnose, in a single sentence, exactly what a manuscript needed, was something miraculous. I’m heartbroken, and will miss him so much.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

4 years

We are told over and over again we must respect the inviolability of borders and walls, or else civilization itself will crumble. But this is what a crumbling civilization looks like. This is what barbarism looks like.

Samantha Power

@SamanthaJPower

4 years

. @derspiegel investigation finds that Greek authorities are deporting desperate #refugees by setting them adrift at sea: they “frequently put the migrants in inflatable life rafts, tow them toward Turkey and then leave them to their fates."

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

3 years

The author copies have arrived.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

6 years

I genuinely wonder if anyone involved in this, from the person who wrote it to the person who came up with the headline, paused even for a moment to consider not only how racist it is, but how incredibly, almost impressively, stupid.

New York Times Opinion

@nytopinion

6 years

Crazy Rich Asians versus Crazy Poor Middle Easterners — one has invested in education, trade, infrastructure, and human capital, the other has not

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

6 years

American War comes out in paperback on Jan. 30th. in the US and Canada.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

3 years

I'm so grateful to be on this magnificent list, and to the judges, who I don't envy at all for having to make these decisions -- every one of the longlisted books and authors are outstanding.

Scotiabank Giller Prize

@GillerPrize

3 years

Introducing the 2021 #ScotiabankGillerPrize shortlist! #GillerPrize #ScotiaLovesBooks #CanLit #CrazyforCanLit

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

5 years

This country is a man trying to describe a burning building without using the word fire. A People's Future of the United States February 5, 2019

A People's Future of the United States by Charlie Jane Anders, Lesley Nneka Arimah, Charles Yu:...

A glittering landscape of twenty-five speculative stories that challenge oppression and envision new futures for America—from N. K. Jemisin, Charles Yu, Jamie Ford, G. Willow...

www.penguinrandomhouse.com

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

3 years

Not that I'm particularly prolific here, or that anyone's waiting with bated breath, but I'm leaving social media for a while to wrestle with what I hope will be the next book. You can always reach me by email, where I will either respond instantly or eight months later.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

4 years

The only religious holiday we celebrate in this family is the day the baby is finally big enough to wear his @CityLightsBooks shirt.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

4 years

Years from now, when it is safe to do so, almost every Republican will retroactively be a supporter of these protests. They will attend the street-naming ceremonies and they will smile at the statue unveilings and they will treat history as an inconvenience, an optional thing.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

2 years

It's incredible how well the right-wing in the United States has capitalized on the infinite capacity of mainstream liberals for astonishment -- "I never thought they'd go that far..." -- when the only certainty over the last 20 years is the Republican fringe becoming its center.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

8 years

You fight the war with guns, you fight the peace with stories. American War Spring, 2017

American War by Omar El Akkad: 9781101973134 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A second American Civil War, a devastating plague, and one family caught deep in the middle—this gripping debut novel asks what might happen if America...

www.penguinrandomhouse.com

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

7 years

I wrote this about living through the first year of Trump's America.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

10 months

Some personal news: I have a new literary agent, the wonderful Nicole Aragi at @AragiAuthors . I’m so, so grateful to Anne McDermid, who took me on for no discernable reason 8 years ago, put up with me far longer than she should have, and without whom I’d have no writing career.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

4 years

The defining phenomenon of this election and likely many more to come is that one of the two major political parties in the United States has self-imposed limits on what it will do in pursuit of power and the other does not.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

6 years

Of all the social phenomena I've encountered since moving to the United States, none makes me angrier than this country's talent for violent forgetting.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

3 years

Daughter: "Sing Wheels on the Bus" Me: "Ok. The wheels on the bus go..." D: "No. With more bus!" M: "More bus?" D: "More bus!" M: "Uhh... The bus on the bus goes bus bus bus..." D: "More bus!" [A few minutes later] M: "Bus bus bus bus bus bus bus, bus bus bus, bus bus bus..."

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

1 year

My kid has come up with a new game. It's called "Pattern, Horn." It's like Rock, Paper, Scissors, except there's only two things, Pattern beats Horn, we've been playing for 20 minutes and it is ruining my life.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

4 years

The good news is that our neighborhood in Oregon has been taken off evacuation notice. The bad news is that this is what passes for good news now.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

6 years

This is utterly surreal. Thank you so much @TahmohPenikett , good luck to all the other finalists, and congratulations to the incredible authors and books that made this year's longlist, any of whom could have easily ended up in the finals.

CBC Books

@cbcbooks

6 years

Meet the #CanadaReads 2018 contenders!

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

3 years

I wrote about what happened at the Capitol, and the ruinous politics of unreality.

Opinion: The American narrative has been irreparably fractured

It is the perpetual coddling of increasingly unhinged ideologies that is responsible for this derangement

www.theglobeandmail.com

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

4 years

I wrote about the last six months in America, and the sense of watching a part of this country come to an end

Opinion: The year America melted down

For six months, the blinding effect of American individualism has driven the United States toward a disaster in this pandemic and the political crises it's caused. This once-great nation's tragedy...

www.theglobeandmail.com

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

7 years

The German hardcover of American War is just gorgeous.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

4 years

I got a couple of notes today asking about the film rights for American War, and I was wondering why, all of a sudden...

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

7 years

It's hard to explain just how much this one means to me.

Rewayat Books

@RewayatReads

7 years

Omar El Akkad’s audacious and powerful debut novel “American War” is available in Arabic at the Kalimat Group stand at #SIBF17

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

4 years

To give you a sense of how much of a deathtrap this thing is, at one point during its construction, I googled "how to connect two pieces of wood." Nonetheless, Plague Wall is finally "complete." Send holds.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

7 years

American War is published in the UK today. Deeply grateful to the folks at @picadorbooks for taking it on.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

2 years

Hard to explain just how good this book is.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

6 years

People will be talking about The Marrow Thieves for a long time. And they should.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

3 years

Almost exactly six years ago, my agent submitted a draft of my first novel to Sonny Mehta. Knopf been my home ever since, and I think it's the finest house in publishing.

Alfred A. Knopf

@AAKnopf

3 years

Happy pub day to WHAT STRANGE PARADISE by @omarelakkad ! (📖: ) “It is one thing to put a human face on a migrant crisis and another to do so in so compelling a way that a reader simply cannot put your book down.” —Gish Jen, author of The Resisters

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

4 years

The man whose illegal war killed upwards of a million Iraqis went on to paint portraits. The woman who oversaw black site torture went on to run the CIA. The man who wrote the torture memos went on to teach law at Berkeley. They can rehabilitate anyone. Don’t let them do it again

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

5 years

This was the most fun I've had on stage in a really long time.

Chris Hayes

@chrislhayes

5 years

Here it is: our live #WITHPod from L.A. w @GhostPanther and @omarelakkad ! Includes: a riff on Samuel Beckett’s life and work, a running bit about Shell oil sponsorship, and me walking off stage at one point because I keep falling for Adam’s deadpan.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

3 years

He lived such an incredible life, and this is an incredible loss. My condolences to everyone at @CityLightsBooks

Lawrence Ferlinghetti—the San Francisco poet, publisher and bookseller—has died

Ferlinghetti was the co-founder of the legendary City Lights bookstore and a champion of Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac.

www.latimes.com

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

5 years

Thanks to everyone who came out to this tonight, and to Chris and Adam for being just brilliant human beings. It was so much fun.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

5 years

Just finished Deaf Republic by Ilya Kaminsky. An absolute work of genius. I can't stop thinking about it.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

4 years

I imagine the most tedious part of being a Republican apologist is having to get up every morning and parrot some convoluted nonsense to explain away this criminality, instead of simply saying, "Yes. We know. We just don't care."

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

6 years

The only reason my book made it this far in the competition is because of the intellect, tenacity and kindness of @TahmohPenikett , who had been like a brother to me these past two months. Thank you so much, Helo.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

7 years

I'm going to fire off more tweets in the next few minutes than I have all year, because I want to tell you about the best books I read in 2017. Bear with me.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

6 years

I'm at a literary festival in Newfoundland. It's very pretty here.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

6 years

Congratulations, @MarkSakamoto1 . A wonderful, vital book and very worthy Canada Reads champion. I hope everyone takes the time to read all the excellent books that made this year's CR longlist and finals. So much great, great writing there.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

4 years

Happy Eid, all. Everything is still terrible but now a billion of us can eat in the daytime.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

7 years

I have bad news about how it got to be those two things.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

4 years

A friend of mine at the University of British Columbia sent me a link to a couple of projects her students completed while studying my novel -- virtual museums of the 2nd American civil war. I'm honestly flabbergasted and so, so moved. Look at this:

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

4 years

Happy Ramadan, all. Should be a pretty straightforward one with no added complications.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

3 years

You come to learn, over the years, how rare the privilege of a deep reading can be. I'm so grateful for this review of What Strange Paradise, and for the reviewer's generosity in affording me that privilege.

‘What Strange Paradise’ Explores Two Sides of a Migrant Crisis (Published 2021)

Omar El Akkad’s new novel follows a young refugee who survives a shipwreck and the girl who comes to his aid.

www.nytimes.com

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

2 years

One of the weird things about living in North America for a long time is that whenever I visit England, a lot of the product names read like they were dreamt up by a slightly mis-programmed learning algorithm.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

2 years

Wonderful birthday present right here. Congratulations to these excellent authors. So happy to be in such company.

pacificnwbooksellers

@pacificnwbooks1

2 years

Please join us in congratulating the 2022 PNBA Book Awards Winners! 🎉More info on each author and book plus how to register for the virtual awards show on Jill Louise Busby, Julie Morstad, @emilygprado @xiranjayzhao , Omar El Akkad, Anthony Doerr

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

2 years

Did an event once where three people showed up -- two because they had an Egyptian son-in-law and thought I might know him for some reason, and one dude who clearly was meaning to attend another event but got the date wrong.

Rebecca Makkai

@rebeccamakkai

2 years

I think this is a clear call for all the authors on Twitter to share our saddest reading/signing stories with this debut author, who seems lovely and deserves better.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

5 years

Tonight my friend @amp6 launched her incredible new book, in Toronto. It's a genuinely astounding piece of work and you're going to hear a lot more about it in the next little while.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

6 years

Ten bucks says they serve the meal at 5 p.m.

POLITICO

@politico

6 years

Trump to host Ramadan dinner

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

2 years

I'm out at a weeklong teaching and writing residency in Sylhet, Bangladesh. It's very pretty here.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

6 years

Happy Ramadan, all. I will be difficult to work with for the next month.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

4 years

"This will be over quickly and only unimportant people will die" is the siren song of American calamity.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

4 years

A documentary, years from now, consisting of nothing but aging, disgraced Republicans asked to sit in front of the camera and answer the question: "Was it worth it?"

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

6 years

In no other country would this be a serious news story and not a piece of dark, dark comedy.

NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt

@NBCNightlyNews

6 years

Bleeding is the leading cause of death at a mass shooting, but one-third of victims can survive if treated within five minutes. The Stop the Bleed program is teaching students how to do it. NBC News' @DrJohnTorres reports.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

10 years

Apple's power: A week after a hacking scandal exposed personal info, it launches, to massive applause, a product that collects more info.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

7 years

So, so thrilled to be mentioned in the same sentence as these four incredible writers.

Writers' Trust

@writerstrust

7 years

Announcing 2017's #RogersFiction finalists! @CarleighBaker @ClaireCameron #DavidChariandy @OmarElAkkad @Betasamosake

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

3 years

The bookstore I once drove from Toronto to San Francisco to visit.

City Lights Books

@CityLightsBooks

3 years

Coming up this Tuesday, @omarelakkad in conversation on #CityLightsLIVE discussing his acclaimed new novel, What Strange Paradise. Registration required for the livestream and it's free of course.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

10 years

A sign at Ferguson's public library. Schools are closed but volunteers are running makeshift classes here. http://t.co/yxrbhQkLZ7

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

11 years

This is the Citizen Kane of gifs: http://t.co/qXVi0cNWcN

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

3 years

This will come as a surprise to anyone who's read my novels, but I used to write comedy. The story I wrote for this collection is the first time in a long time I've gone back to that world, and my god was it fun to write.

Selected Shorts

@SelectedShorts

3 years

This is not a drill! Selected Shorts comes to print with #SmallOdysseys , available 3/15. Edited by Hannah Tinti with a foreword by Neil Gaiman, this collection includes 35 new stories by preeminent authors & rising stars. PREORDER NOW:

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

5 years

For Lithub's special series on storytelling and the climate crisis, I wrote about obliteration of memory and obliteration of space.

Faster Than We Thought: What Stories Will Survive Climate Change?

I grew up in Qatar, a tiny peninsula off the eastern coast of Saudi Arabia. Less than a century ago, before the boom, it was a desolate corner of the world, home to Bedouin tribes, shepherds, fishe…

lithub.com

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

2 years

It took almost a year, but I'm finally doing an in-store event for What Strange Paradise. Come by if you can.

Penguin Random House Higher Education

@PRHHigherEd

2 years

Tuesday, 6/7 at 630pm PT join @omarelakkad for the launch of the paperback edition of his award-winning second novel, WHAT STRANGE PARADISE. Hosted by @bookbroads

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

3 years

The UK hardcover arrived today. Out on August 19.

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

5 years

Her work, more than that of any other author, changed my life. What a monumental loss this is.

Alfred A. Knopf

@AAKnopf

5 years

We are profoundly sad to report that Toni Morrison has died at the age of eighty-eight. “We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.” February 18, 1931 – August 5, 2019

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Omar El Akkad

@omarelakkad

6 years

So many of the writers whose work changed my life are previous winners of this award. It's such a thrill and an honour to be a part of this year's fiction shortlist.