5/26/2023 0 Comments Omar el akkad![]() ![]() THE POWER LIST: See the full ranking of 50 Canadians “Unfortunately, I’m not part of any of those segments.” “I’m sure quarterly Apple earnings are of huge interest to certain segments of the population,” he says from his home in Oregon. On bad days, he felt like he was rewriting press releases. The novel went on to win the 2021 Scotiabank Giller Prize, one of the country’s most prestigious literary awards.Ī former reporter with the Globe and Mail, the Egyptian-Canadian says that, on good days as a journalist, he felt like he was changing the world by telling the truth. It is the story of a young Syrian asylum seeker who survives a shipwreck-or, as El Akkad explains it, a reinterpretation of the famous Western fable Peter Pan, if the boy who wouldn’t grow up were a child refugee. This time last year, El Akkad wasn’t sure anyone would even read his latest novel, What Strange Paradise. El Akkad was equally mystified, but not for the same reason: “I thought, ‘I can’t believe they think it’s rated,’ ” he tells Maclean’s. One member of the group had dismissed El Akkad’s book in the comments as “overrated”-a message the friend conveyed to the author, dismayed that anyone would speak thus about his writing. Click here to see the full list.Ī friend of El Akkad was recently scrolling through Facebook posts from her book club when she came across a reference to one of his novels. ![]() 43 on the 2022 Maclean’s Power List, a ranking of 50 influential Canadians. ![]()
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