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UID:34168@arabamerica.com
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20250320T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20250320T200000
DTSTAMP:20250317T212038Z
URL:https://www.arabamerica.com/events/omar-el-akkad-in-person/
SUMMARY:Omar El Akkad in Person
DESCRIPTION:HADLEY\, MA\n\nJoin us on Thursday\, March 20 at 7 PM as Omar E
 l Akkad talks about his new book\, One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been 
 Against This. He will be joined in conversation by George Abraham.\n\nFrom
  award-winning novelist and journalist Omar El Akkad comes a powerful reck
 oning with what it means to live in a West that betrays its fundamental va
 lues\n\nOn October 25\, 2023\, after just three weeks of the bombardment o
 f Gaza\, Omar El Akkad put out a tweet: “One day\, when it’s safe\, wh
 en 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.\n\
 nAs an immigrant who came to the West\, El Akkad believed that it promised
  freedom. A place of justice for all. But in the past twenty years\, repor
 ting on the War on Terror\, Ferguson\, climate change\, Black Lives Matter
  protests\, and more\, and watching the unmitigated slaughter in Gaza\, El
  Akkad has come to the conclusion that much of what the West promises is a
  lie. That there will always be entire groups of human beings it has never
  intended to treat as fully human—not just Arabs or Muslims or immigrant
 s\, but whoever falls outside the boundaries of privilege. One Day\, Every
 one Will Have Always Been Against This is a chronicle of that painful real
 ization\, a moral grappling with what it means\, as a citizen of the U.S.\
 , as a father\, to carve out some sense of possibility in a time of carnag
 e.\n\nThis is El Akkad’s nonfiction debut\, his most raw and vulnerable 
 work to date\, a heartsick breakup letter with the West. It is a brilliant
  articulation of the same breakup we are watching all over the United Stat
 es\, in family rooms\, on college campuses\, on city streets\; the consequ
 ences of this rupture are just beginning. This book is for all the people 
 who want something better than what the West has served up. This is the bo
 ok for our time.\nAbout the Author\nOMAR EL AKKAD is an author and journal
 ist. He was born in Egypt\, grew up in Qatar\, moved to Canada as a teenag
 er\, and now lives in the United States. He is a two-time winner of both t
 he Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award and the Oregon Book Awa
 rd for fiction. His books have been translated into thirteen languages. Hi
 s debut novel\, American War\, was named by the BBC as one of one hundred 
 novels that shaped our world.\n\nAbout George Abraham\n\nGeorge Abraham (t
 hey/هو) is a Palestinian American poet\, essayist\, critic\, performance
  artist. They are the author of When the Arab Apocalypse Comes to America 
 (Haymarket\, 2026) and Birthright (Button Poetry\, 2020)\, which won the A
 rab American Book Award and was a Lambda Literary Award finalist. They are
  editor-at-large of Mizna\, and co-editor of HEAVEN LOOKS LIKE US: Palesti
 nian Poetry (Haymarket\, 2025). They are a graduate of Northwestern’s Li
 towitz MFA+MA program\, and teach at Amherst College as a Writer-in-Reside
 nce.
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LOCATION:Odyssey Bookshop\, 9 College Street South\, Hadley\, MA\, 01075\, 
 United States
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