NBPLF Library Live Author Series on March 23 features Omar El Akkad

On Thursday, March 23 from 7-8:30 p.m., the Newport Beach Public Library Foundation (NBPLF) is presenting Omar El Akkad as part of its Library Live Author Series in Central Library’s Friends Room.

El Akkad will be discussing his book, What Strange Paradise (2021), the story about a boy who survives a refugee passage and a girl whose homeland feels fractured but dares to save him.

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Courtesy of NBPLF

Author, journalist Omar El Akkad 

El Akkad, an author and a journalist, has beautifully woven a compelling story about hope and despair, empathy and indifference, against a backdrop of the all-too-common dehumanization and dismissal of the global refugee crisis.

The book won the Giller Prize, the Oregon Book Award for fiction and was shortlisted for the Aspen Words Literary Prize. His debut novel American War (2018) has been translated into 13 languages and was selected by the BBC as one of 100 novels that changed our world. His journalism has earned the National Newspaper Award for Investigative Journalism and the Goff Penny Award for young journalists. El Akkad fiction and non-fiction writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian and Le Monde.

Tickets are $35 and include a lecture, book sale and signing along with refreshments. Purchase tickets here.

Central Library is located at 1000 Avocado Ave., Newport Beach.