This article contains descriptions of war and conflict which may be distressing for some readers.
Journal alum and 2021 Scotiabank Giller Prize winner, Omar El Akkad, ArtSci ’05, has added to his growing list of accolades.
On Nov. 19, the 76th annual US-based National Book Awards took place, administered by the National Book Foundation, accompanied by a musical performance by singer Corinne Bailey Rae, and hosted by Emmy Winner, Jeff Hiller. Amongst all of this excitement, El Akkad won the Nonfiction National Book Award for his book, One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This.
With this award came many complicated feelings. “It’s very difficult to think in celebratory terms about a book that was written in response to a genocide,” El Akkad said in his acceptance speech.
This book, published last year on Feb. 25, is part memoir, part manifesto. It’s a rich condemnation of the “West,”as it’s globally perceived. El Akkad calls attention to the role Western governments have played in oppressing people, specifically the blind eye they’ve turned toward Gaza. El Akkad refuses to do the same.
READ MORE: Queen’s alum Omar El Akkad confronts Western indifference of humanitarian crises in Gaza
“I’m incredibly grateful that [the book] has gotten the traction it’s gotten […] I was grateful to be around so many writers I admire and whose work has meant so much to me,” El Akkad said in an interview with The Journal. “None of that changes the fact that this was a book written in response to one of the most grotesque things I’ve seen in my life.”
For El Akkad, writing the book was a necessary response to a horrific reality. Language is how El Akkad proves witness to the atrocities not only occurring in Gaza, but also everywhere around the world. This, to him, is what makes literature so important, especially when he believes the evil and corrupt systems governing our world depend on the “misuse of language”.
“Under those conditions, we have an obligation to use language for what language is intended to be used for, which is the making of meaning and in that way, there is a component of resistance to the work of literature, particularly in times like this, when we are all being asked, very deliberately, to become more illiterate,” El Akkad said.
Writing is resistance, but it has also always been a home for El Akkad, one that he refuses to give up. He refers to each of his previously published novels, American War (2017) and What Strange Paradise (2021) as a “eulogy for the person [he] was when [he] wrote them.”
Since he’s constantly changing, as we all are, El Akkad’s aware that his ideas and stories adapt to reflect his age and experience—both as a human and a writer.
For the next step, he’s returning with fresh eyes to a draft that he started while working at the Queen’s Biological Station (QUBS)in a mini-writing residency a few years ago.
“All writing is excavation, and every writing project is a dig site and you have to dig through a lot of dirt because you find something worthwhile,” El Akkad said.
El Akkad’s National Book Award win wasn’t celebrated alone. He was joined by other talented writers, including Rabih Alameddine, winner of the Fiction award for The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother), and Patricia Smith, winner of the Poetry award for The Intentions of Thunder.
Tags
Literature, National Book Award, Omar El Akkad, Scotiabank Giller Prize
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