Omar El Akkad

Omar El Akkad is an Egyptian-born Canadian writer and journalist whose life and professional background significantly shape the book. Born in Cairo and raised partly in Qatar, he later moved to Canada with his family: a transition that exposed him to the complexities of race, identity, and belonging in the West. His personal experience of immigration and of being racially profiled in North America post-9/11, informs much of his perspective throughout the book. Though not Palestinian himself, El Akkad approaches the current crisis in Gaza with a strong sense of identification, drawing on shared cultural and political reference points as an Arab and a Muslim in the West.

Before turning to fiction and essay writing, El Akkad worked as a journalist for The Globe and Mail, where he reported on subjects ranging from the war in Afghanistan and military trials in Guantanamo Bay to domestic...