Portland Author Omar El Akkad Wins a National Book Award

Portland author Omar El Akkad won the National Book Award for Nonfiction for One Day, Everyone Will Always Have Been Against This , a book blending history, essay and memoir to examine Israel’s retaliation against Palestine after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks, and the United States’ funding of that military campaign.

One Day, Everyone Will Always Have Been Against This faced stiff competition in its category, nominated alongside reflections on the American foster care system’s failures, the feminist history of Russia, and a mother’s memoir of surviving both of her sons’ suicides. But it was El Akkad’s account of Israeli war crimes, and the complicity of the Biden administration, that most impressed a judge’s panel that included Cristina Rivera Garza, Tiya Miles and Eli Saslo