Edward W. Said ’57 Memorial Lecture: Omar El Akkad
Tue, 11/3 · 5:00 pm—6:30 pm · 10 McCosh
Department of English, Edward W. Said Memorial Lecture Fund, Princeton Committee on Palestine
In 2025 El Akkad published his nonfiction debut, “One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This,” his most raw and vulnerable work to date. The book explores themes of conflict, memory, and the shifting nature of truth. Through interconnected narratives, the El Akkad delves into personal and political struggles, examining how history is rewritten and the collective past is manipulated to serve present-day agendas. “One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This,” won the 2025 National Book Award for Nonfiction.
El Akkad’s debut novel, “American War,” is a darkly prescient tale of a country and world torn apart by war, conflicts about fossil fuels, environmental catastrophes, and a devastating plague. The novel’s young heroine, Sarat Chestnut, is only six at the start of the Second American Civil War in 2074, but she endures a lifetime of turmoil and is profoundly shaped by the conflicts of her time. Sarat is eventually turned into a deadly instrument of war, and her fateful decisions have tremendous consequences not just for herself, but for her family, her country, and the generations that follow. “American War” was long-listed for 2018 Carnegie Medal of Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction.
