Omar El Akkad Reads From American War and What Strange Paradise
On Storybound, Our Radio-Theater Podcast
Storybound is a radio theater program designed for the podcast age. Hosted by Jude Brewer and with original music composed for each episode, the podcast features the voices of today’s literary icons reading their essays, poems, and fiction.
On the fifth episode of the fourth season, Omar El Akkad reads excerpts from American War and What Strange Paradise, backed by an original Storybound remix, and sound design and arrangement by Jude Brewer.
Omar El Akkad is an author and journalist. He was born in Egypt, grew up in Qatar, moved to Canada as a teenager, and now lives in the United States. The start of his journalism career coincided with the start of the war on terror, and over the following decade he reported from Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay, and many other locations around the world. His work earned a National Newspaper Award for Investigative Journalism and the Goff Penny Award for young journalists.
His debut novel, American War, is an international bestseller and has been translated into thirteen languages. It won the Pacific Northwest Booksellers’ Award, the Oregon Book Award for fiction, and the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize. It was listed as one of the best books of the year by The New York Times, Washington Post, GQ, NPR, Esquire, and was selected by the BBC as one of 100 novels that changed our world.
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Support for this episode comes from: Home. Made. is a podcast hosted by Stephanie Foo that explores the meaning of home and what it can teach us about ourselves and each other. Listen to Home. Made. wherever you listen to podcasts; WW Norton brings you Michael Lewis’ The Premonition: A Pandemic Story, a nonfiction thriller that pits a band of medical visionaries against a wall of ignorance as the COVID-19 pandemic looms; Scribd combines the latest technology with the best human minds to recommend content that you’ll love. Go to try.scribd.com/storybound to get 60 days of Scribd for free; Finding You is an inspirational romantic drama full of heart and humor about finding the strength to be true to oneself. Now playing only in theaters; Acorn.tv is the largest commercial free British streaming service with hundreds of exclusive shows from around the world. Try acorn.tv for free for 30 days by going to acorn.tv and using promo code storybound.
Since you’re listening to Storybound, you might enjoy reading, writing, and storytelling. We’d like to suggest you also try the History of Literature or Book Dreams.
