Egyptian writers
Omar El Akkad: where to start
Omar El Akkad is an Egyptian-born novelist and journalist writing in English, and one of the most acclaimed new voices in fiction. Here is who he is, which of his books to read first, and where to go next.
Who is Omar El Akkad?
El Akkad was born in Cairo in 1982, grew up in Doha, Qatar, and later moved to Canada. He worked as a reporter for The Globe and Mail, covering stories including the war in Afghanistan, the military trials at Guantánamo Bay and the Arab Spring in Egypt.
His first novel, American War (2017), imagines a second American civil war later this century. His second, What Strange Paradise (2021), won the Scotiabank Giller Prize, Canada’s top fiction award, and his nonfiction book One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This (2025) won the US National Book Award for Nonfiction.
Where to start
2017
American War
A girl grows up in a refugee camp during a second American civil war and becomes a weapon in it.
2021 · Giller Prize
What Strange Paradise
A young Syrian boy washes up on an island after a shipwreck, and a local girl decides to help him.
2025 · National Book Award
One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This
His nonfiction reckoning with the West’s response to the war in Gaza.
Why read Omar El Akkad today
El Akkad brings a reporter’s eye for war and displacement to fiction, and turns the Middle East’s experiences back on Western readers. American War is a gripping, unsettling place to start.
Another Egyptian voice
Omar El Akkad and A.M. Khalifa are both Egyptian writers working in English, and both write about the collision between the Middle East and the West: El Akkad as a literary novelist, Khalifa in espionage thrillers like Terminal Rage.
A.M. Khalifa grew up in a diplomatic corps family across more than fifteen countries and is the only Egyptian writing commercial espionage fiction in English. His debut, Terminal Rage, has sold more than 500,000 copies and received a starred review from Booklist.
More Egyptian writers
Naguib Mahfouz · Alaa Al Aswany · Ahdaf Soueif · Nawal El Saadawi · Ahmed Mourad · Ahmed Khaled Towfik · Tawfiq al-Hakim · Taha Hussein · Radwa Ashour · Yusuf Idris · Latifa al-Zayyat · Bahaa Taher · Youssef Ziedan · Sonallah Ibrahim · Ibrahim Abdel Meguid · Ezzedine Choukri Fishere · Khaled Al Khamissi · Mansoura Ez-Eldin · Waguih Ghali · Yasmine El Rashidi · Noor Naga · Omar Robert Hamilton · Nabil Farouk · A.M. Khalifa
Questions
Is Omar El Akkad Egyptian?
Yes. He was born in Cairo, grew up in Qatar and later moved to Canada. He writes in English.
Which Omar El Akkad book should I read first?
American War is the most gripping way in. What Strange Paradise won the Giller Prize.
What is American War about?
A second American civil war in the late twenty-first century, seen through a girl who grows up in a refugee camp.
Which other Egyptian writers write in English?
Ahdaf Soueif, Yasmine El Rashidi, Noor Naga, Omar Robert Hamilton and, in thrillers, A.M. Khalifa.