Feb 13 2025 32 mins 6
On this episode we meet novelist Omar El Akkad to discuss One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This. Published by Canongate (27.02 - UK) it is a powerful meditation on what it means to live in the heart of an empire, an indictment of Western complicity in the ongoing genocide of Palestinians and an exploration of the hypocrisies on which we build our lives.
Drawing from Omar’s own journalistic experience reporting on years of the ‘War on Terror,’ and the migration of his childhood, this book chronicles a painful realisation of all that keeps power in place. It is a searing critique of Western government and media, a demand to pause and bear witness and a refusal of an assembly line approach to injustice
At a time when so many are struggling to find voice at the state of the world, it is that most important thing - a coherent articulation of rage. But, as the title suggests, Omar’s is an argument, that despite deep uncertainty, asks us to consider a future too.
‘Each generation looks back in judgement, and sometimes in horror, at the moral blind spots of earlier generations and previous ages. To get a glimpse of how we in the early 21st century might one day be judged for our passivity and hypocrisy, I urge you to read Omar El Akkad’s astonishing book.’
David Olusoga
‘I can’t think of a more important piece of writing to read right now. Doom and gloom and unspeakable horror abound and overwhelm these days, but it remains important to understand what we already know is happening now and how it will be understood in the future. It helps when we feel helpless to give our time and attention, our hearts and consideration to a voice like this, a book like this, from our particular time and for it.’
Tommy Orange
@fieldzine
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