Omar El Akkad, a faculty member in 芭乐视频鈥檚 Master of Fine Arts in Writing Program, is the recipient of one of the nation鈥檚 highest awards for literacy excellence.
El Akkad received the for nonfiction for his book . The award was presented during the 76th National Book Awards ceremony on November 19 in New York.
A member of the Pacific MFA faculty since 2023, El Akkad delivered a discussion on the book last April as part of the university鈥檚 Whiteley Lecture Series on the Forest Grove Campus.
El Akkad鈥檚 first nonfiction book, One Day, Everyone Will Have Been Against This is a reckoning with the promises of the West and how, in his eyes, those promises will never be there for certain groups of human beings through his experience as an immigrant to the West and his work as a journalist covering such events as the War on Terror, the Black Lives Matter movement and the war in Israel.
The title is derived from an X post that El Akkad wrote on October 25, 2023, three weeks after Israel began its bombardment of Gaza: 鈥淥ne day, when it鈥檚 safe, when there鈥檚 no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it鈥檚 too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this.鈥
In his acceptance speech, El Akkad acknowledged the important work that writers have to address the powers of oppression in the world.
鈥淚f we are to do this work of language, we have an obligation to stand in opposition to any force, including those enacted by our own governments, that if left unchecked would happily decimate every principle of free expression and connection that we鈥檝e come here to celebrate,鈥 El Akkad said.
One of the top honors for literacy excellence in the United States, the National Book Awards recognize and celebrate the best literature in the U.S. Awards are presented for fiction, nonfiction, poetry, translated literature, and young people鈥檚 literature. In 2025, publishers submitted 1,835 books for this year鈥檚 awards, including 652 in the nonfiction category.
El Akkad was born in Egypt and grew up in Qatar before moving to Canada and then the United States. He was a journalist for Canada鈥檚 The Globe & Mail newspaper, where he covered the war in Afghanistan, the military trials at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the Arab Spring movement in Egypt, and the Black Lives Matter movement in the U.S. He currently lives with his family near Portland.
Pacific鈥檚 low-residency Master of Fine Arts in Writing program allows burgeoning writers to enhance their craft with some of the best writers in the world. The two-year program provides lessons in writing craft with semester-long mentorship with faculty members that allow students to learn a sustainable and enduring practice of writing. The program includes two 10-day writing residencies each year: a January residency in Seaside and a June residency on the Forest Grove Campus.