Review

[An] exciting debut . . . what sets this impressive book apart from other dystopian novels is the fully realised plausibility of the scenario El Akkad’s created, the roots of which can be all too easily identified in the world around us today… As diverting a read as this engrossing novel is, American War should no doubt also be read as a cautionary tale. (Independent)

Informed by writer El Akkad's experiences working as a journalist in Afghanistan and Egypt's Arab Spring, this is a timely and haunting book that reflects our uncertain era. (Stylist)

Impressive . . . the novel’s evocation of the future is so sharply observed and so anchored in an informed reading of present geopolitics that it is hard to resist . . . It comments intelligently on the world today, where displaced millions are broiling in camps or trying to eke out a better life elsewhere, at whatever cost. (Sunday Times)

[American War] creates as haunting a post-apocalyptic universe as Cormac McCarthy did in The Road, and as devastating a look at the fallout that national events have on an American family as Philip Roth did in The Plot Against America . . . El Akkad has written a novel that not only maps the harrowing effects of violence on one woman and her family, but also becomes a disturbing parable about the ruinous consequences of war on ordinary civilians. (Michiko Kakutani New York Times)

It is an ambitious concept and El Akkad . . . pulls it off in an imaginative feat of world building . . . American War is an assured debut and El Akkad’s experience as a war reporter lends a grisly realism to proceedings . . . A vivid and nightmarish vision of an all-too-conceivable future. (Express)

American War is an extraordinary novel. El Akkad’s story of a family caught up in the collapse of an empire is as harrowing as it is brilliant, and has an air of terrible relevance in these partisan times. (Emily St. John Mandel, author of Station Eleven)

[A] striking debut . . . El Akkad is well equipped to speculate on the way in which our present predicaments might spark brutal conflict: he has seen those conflicts for himself . . . the book’s politics and its situations are all too believable. (New Statesman)

Disturbingly plausible . . . a tale of a future America torn asunder by its own political and tribal affiliations . . . The novel’s thriller premise notwithstanding, Akkad applies a literary writer’s care to his depiction of Sarat’s psychological unpacking and the sensory details of her life . . . Whether read as a cautionary tale of partisanship run amok, an allegory of past conflicts or a study of the psychology of war, American War is a deeply unsettling novel. The only comfort the story offers is that it’s a work of fiction. For the time being, anyway. (Justin Cronin New York Times)

The comment being made on the Trump administration is impossible to miss in this engaging novel . . . It paints a bleak picture pf the future of humanity if climate change and the divisions of our society are not addressed now. (i)

Terrifying . . . moving . . . Convincing, compelling and very bloody scary. (Metro)

Book Description

An audacious and powerful debut novel about a post-apocalyptic America, for fans of Station Eleven.

From the Inside Flap

A second American Civil War, a devastating plague, and one family caught deep in the middle – a story that asks what might happen if America were to turn its most devastating policies and deadly weapons upon itself.
Sarat Chestnut, born in Louisiana, is only six when the Second American Civil War breaks out in 2074. But even she knows that oil is outlawed, that Louisiana is half underwater, that unmanned drones fill the sky. And when her father is killed and her family is forced into Camp Patience for displaced persons, she quickly begins to be shaped by her particular time and place until, finally, through the influence of a mysterious functionary, she is turned into a deadly instrument of war.
Telling her story is her nephew, Benjamin Chestnut, born during war – part of the Miraculous Generation – now an old man confronting the dark secret of his past, his family’s role in the conflict and, in particular, that of his aunt, a woman who saved his life while destroying untold others.
In this remarkable and unforgettable novel, Omar El Akkad confronts us with the universality of revenge, and our reaction to injustice. We are not asked to forgive, only to understand.

From the Back Cover

‘[American War] creates as haunting a post-apocalyptic universe as Cormac McCarthy did in The Road, and as devastating a look at the fallout that national events have on an American family as Philip Roth did in The Plot Against America . . A disturbing parable about the ruinous consequences of war on ordinary civilians.’ Michiko Kakutani, New York Times
‘In American War, [Omar El Akkad] has crafted . . . a gripping plot and an elegiac narrative tone, but also an oppressively grim vision of a divided, self-destructive nation that becomes a victim of its darkest impulses and actions.’ Boston Globe
‘Poignant and horrifying . . . El Akkad demonstrates a profound understanding of the corrosive culture of civil war, the offenses that give rise to new hypocrisies and mythologies, translating terrorists into martyrs and acts of despair into feats of heroism.’ Washington Post

About the Author

Omar El Akkad is an award-winning journalist and author who has travelled around the world to cover many of the most important news stories of the last decade. His reporting includes dispatches from the NATO-led war in Afghanistan, the military trials at Guantanamo Bay, the Arab Spring revolution in Egypt and the Black Lives Matter movement in Ferguson, Missouri. He is a recipient of a National Newspaper Award for investigative reporting and the Goff Penny Memorial Prize for Young Journalists, as well as three National Magazine Award honorable mentions. He lives in Portland, Oregon.