The award-winning novelist and journalist with his non-fiction debut will be speaking in-person at Revolution Books. Also, poet Marwa Helal.About this Event
On October 25, 2023, three weeks into the unrelenting bombardment of Gaza, Omar El Akkad put out a tweet:
“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.”
This tweet has been viewed more than 10 million times.
Over the past twenty years, El Akkad has reported on the Arab Spring, the US invasions in the Middle East, climate change, the Guantanamo torture camp, Black Lives Matter protests. And now, watching the unmitigated slaughter in Gaza, he writes:
“...You are being asked to K*ll off a part of you that would otherwise scream in opposition to injustice. You are being asked to dismantle the machinery of a functioning conscience. Who cares if diplomatic expediency prefers you shrug away the sight of dismembered children?... Forget pity, forget even the dead if you must, but at least fight against the theft of your soul.”
One Day is part memoir, part analysis and searing exposure. On the genocide in Gaza: “[T]he empire . . . must look upon this and say: Yes, this is tragic, but necessary, because the alternative is barbarism. The alternative to the countless killed and maimed and orphaned and left without home without school without hospital and the screaming from under the rubble and the corpses disposed of by vultures and dogs and the days-old babies left to scream and starve, is barbarism.”
This book makes the unflinching argument-- a demand-- to every reader, including those living at a comfortable distance (for now) from the horrors many millions in this world currently suffer: Do not look away. Act.
"[In his] fiercely agonized new book about American and European responses to the devastation of Gaza, El Akkad is trying...to force American readers to think of Palestinian victims not as 'them' but as 'us.'"
-- New York Times Sunday Book Review (cover review)
"A landmark of truth telling and moral courage... "
-- Junot Diaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
OMAR EL AKKAD was born in Egypt, grew up in Qatar, moved to Canada as a teenager, and now lives in the US. His books have been translated into thirteen languages. His debut novel, American War, was named by the BBC as one of 100 novels that shaped our world.
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Joining Omar on Saturday at 4pm at RB:
Poet MARWA HELAL
Marwa Helal is the author of Ante Body and Invasive Species, Marwa Helal was born in Egypt. Her work has appeared in Hyperallergic, Boston Review, Poets & Writers. She won BOMB Magazine’s Biennial 2016 Poetry Contest and has had fellowships from the Whiting Foundation, New York Foundation of the Arts, Cave Canem, and many more.
This event is co-sponsored by Revolution Books Educational Fund, a 501(c)3 tax-deductible entity.
Suggested donation at the door: $5-10 for Revolution Books
Event Venue
Revolution Books New York, 437 Malcolm X Boulevard, New York, United States
USD 0.00
