A provocative essay collection about the West’s response to the Gaza war and a children’s book about young Iranians helping a Jewish refugee in World War II were two of the big winners at the National Book Awards Wednesday evening.

“One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This,” by Egyptian-Canadian journalist and author Omar El Akkad, won the evening’s nonfiction prize. Based on a viral tweet El Akkad sent early into the Israel-Gaza war, the book maligns Western liberalism for, in El Akkad’s telling, turning its back on Palestinian suffering.

“It’s very difficult to think in celebratory terms about a book that was written in response to a genocide,” El Akkad said in his acceptance speech. “It’s difficult to think in celebratory terms when I know my tax money is doing this, and m

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