Omar El Akkad
| Omar El Akkad | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1982 (age 41–42) Cairo, Egypt |
| Occupation | 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
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
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, where it will be defended by Tareq Hadhad.[15]
In 2022, Omar Ek-Akkad appeared on the podcast, The Literary City with Ramjee Chandran to talk about "What Strange Paradise."
Personal life
He lives with his wife and daughter in Portland, Oregon.[16]
Bibliography
- American War - 2017 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf)
- What Strange Paradise - 2021 (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart)
References
- ↑ Adina Bresge, "Omar El Akkad wins $100K Giller Prize for 'What Strange Paradise'". CTV News, November 8, 2021.
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- ↑ "David Chariandy, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson among finalists for $50K Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize". CBC Books, September 27, 2017
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- ↑ "Sharon Bala, Omar El Akkad among finalists for $40K Amazon.ca First Novel Award". CBC Books, April 28, 2018.
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- ↑ "Meet the Canada Reads 2022 contenders". CBC Books, January 26, 2022.
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- Articles with short description
- Articles with hCards
- No local image but image on Wikidata
- 1982 births
- Living people
- 21st-century Canadian male writers
- 21st-century Canadian novelists
- Canadian male journalists
- Canadian male novelists
- Canadian people of Egyptian descent
- Journalists from Portland, Oregon
- People from Doha
