Last night, author Omar El Akkad won the National Book Award for non-fiction for One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, his searing indictment of the West’s response to and complicity in the war in Gaza. One Day was the Ink Book Club’s June selection, and we invite you to watch our conversation with El Akkad.
“While the terrible thing is happening — while the land is still being stolen and the natives still being killed — any form of opposition is terroristic and must be crushed for the sake of civilization,” he writes. While the outrages are happening, people reassure themselves that “Yes, this is tragic, but necessary, because the alternative is barbarism.”
In his acceptance speech, El Akkad first acknowledged that his family “didn’t sign up for this” and “the many ways this book has upended our lives.”
It’s very difficult to think in celebratory terms about a book that was written in response to a genocide. It’s difficult to think in celebratory terms when I have spent two years seeing what shrapnel does to a child’s body. It’s difficult to think in celebratory terms when I know my tax money is supporting this, and that many of my elected representatives happily support it, and it is difficult to think in celebratory terms when I have been watching people snatched off the street by agents of the state for daring to suggest that Palestinians might be human beings.
In the speech, El Akkad also expressed his gratitude to the fellow writers who have joined him in speaking out about what’s happening in Gaza:
If we are to do this work of language, we have an obligation to stand in opposition to any force — including those enacted by our own governments — that, if left unchecked, would happily decimate every principle of free expression and connection that we’ve come here to celebrate.
You can watch El Akkad’s speech and the rest of the ceremony below:
Rabih Alameddine took home the fiction prize for his book The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother; Patricia Smith won for poetry, with The Intentions of Thunder: New and Selected Poems; Gabriela Cabezón Cámara (with translator Robin Myers) for translated literature, for We Are Green and Trembling; and Daniel Nayeri in young people’s literature, with The Teacher of Nomad Land: A World War II Story.
The Ink is powered by readers like you. Help us stand up for independent media that isn’t afraid to tell the truth by joining us today.
Your support is how we keep the lights on, pay our writers and editors a fair wage, and build the new media we all deserve. When you subscribe, you help us reach more people. Join us today, or if you are already a member, give a gift or group subscription.
