Portland Magazine
February 18, 2019
Omar El Akkad, Portland-based author of the national bestseller American War, came to UP in November as part of the Schoenfeldt Writers Series. Akkad spoke about the experiences that inspired him to write a novel about a young woman—an American refugee from the southern US—who radicalizes after a fictitious second civil war.
by Omar El Akkad
I am from Egypt but grew up in Qatar. It is a place where there is racism and lack of political expression. You either accept that and stay—or you leave. There were two television shows—MacGyver and America’s Most Wanted. I don’t know why these were the only two shows, though I still like MacGyver. The news was censored, and we’d all try to see past the black ink in Newsweek. The naked child on the Nirvana cover was blacked out. I started to associate culture with a sort of rebellion.
There was no library. My school had 100 books. Every book was labeled orange or red for the age group. I read Stephen King’s novels, which were labeled for the young readers. Obviously, no one had read them. The act of reading was resistance.
There was one theater in Qatar, and they only had one movie—Titanic—which was only one hour long. When I got to Canada in 1998, the temperature was negative 40 degrees (it had been 122 degrees in Qatar). Canada was a place where all things, including Titanic, were not censored. It was like a thousand doors opening all at once.
I went to Queens University and eventually started working as a journalist at The Globe and Mail. In 2006, there were the “Toronto 18” counterterrorism arrests, and I was asked to find out what someone needs to be subjected to in order to radicalize. Eventually, I went to Afghanistan as a journalist, before Canada got out of that war. I was in no way prepared for the real thing. I learned about the arbitrary nature of war and the history of violence that shapes it. I was there. Today I have no idea where it is going, why people are dying.
One day I went to a “ramp” ceremony for two Canadian NATO soldiers who had been killed in Afghanistan. Many soldiers had come to pay tribute. I thought I understood everything that was going on around me. Men carrying the caskets struggled. Some passed out. I thought it was the heat. Later I learned the reason for the struggle. The coffins weighed more than regular coffins. There were pounds and pounds of ice for the journey home. That detail has stayed with me. I didn’t know everything I thought I knew.
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