Between The Covers : Conversations with Writers in Fiction, Nonfiction & Poetry

Omar El Akkad : One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This

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Feb 21, 2025

Omar El Akkad, an award-winning novelist and journalist known for "American War," dives deep into his provocative nonfiction debut, which critiques Western complicity in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He discusses his impactful transition from journalism to fiction, revealing how contemporary crises shaped his writing. The conversation addresses the moral responsibilities of writers and the complexities of language in discussing violence, exploring how liberalism often sanitizes injustice. El Akkad also critiques the narratives of the American dream, highlighting the need for authentic storytelling amidst oppression.

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INSIGHT

Language's Sacred Duty

Madeline Tien praises El Akkad for his refusal to be silent and for upholding the sacred duty of language to bear witness.
She expresses gratitude for his work, describing it as a living thing that gives her courage.

INSIGHT

Writer's Duty

El Akkad discusses the seeming absurdity of focusing on writing craft amidst real-world atrocities.
He emphasizes the writer's duty to combat the misuse of language to obscure meaning and dehumanize.

ANECDOTE

Professional Consequences

El Akkad recounts losing a movie deal and an event invitation due to his stance on Palestine after October 7th.
He emphasizes the minor nature of these losses compared to the ongoing human tragedy.

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In late October 2023, weeks into Israel’s bombing of northern Gaza, the novelist Omar El Akkad retweeted a video taken by a Gazan man. This video showed a lifeless moonscape with endless empty streets of rubble, every building, one to the next, a hollow blown-out shell of itself. No people, no animals, the only sound the strained breath of this man stumbling through this indiscriminately obliterated city that was once a home. El Akkad captioned his tweet with the words: “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” a tweet that has now been viewed over ten million times. Despite El Akkad’s past as a journalist, one who reported on some of the most notorious and fraught moments in recent U.S. history—whether embedded in Afghanistan, down at Guantanamo Bay, or reporting from Ferguson, Missouri—it was the aftermath of October 7th that was a turning point for him in relation to the West and its notions of humanism and liberalism. Together we discuss his debut work of nonfiction that resulted from this, that many characterize as his breakup letter to the West. We look at the role of language in providing cover for the middle, the centrist, the well-meaning liberal to look away and the power of language to create a climate of dehumanization, allowing the unspeakable to seem tragic but necessary.

For the bonus audio archive Omar contributes a reading of one of his favorite poems by Jorie Graham. This joins everyone from Isabella Hammad reading Walid Daqqa to Roger Reeves reading Ghassan Kanafani, to Zahid Rafiq reading Franz Kafka. If you enjoyed today’s conversation consider joining the Between the Covers community as a listener-supporter. You can find out about all the benefits and rewards of doing so, including how to subscribe to the bonus audio, at the show’s Patreon page.

Finally, here is the Bookshop for today’s episode.