Omar El Akkad

Jury Citation

“Omar El Akkad, through dazzling prose, forces us to look directly at the ways we have collectively looked away. One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This is a fierce condemnation of Western hypocrisy, and a reminder there is “no such thing as other people’s children.” El Akkad’s book is an act of public service that compels us to grapple with the conflict in Gaza with artful urgency. Writing with an elegant blend of emotional clarity and intellectual layering, El Akkad takes a bold stance on the conduits of historical memory and moral posturing. One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This fearlessly lays out what is at stake if we fail to acknowledge we are all witnesses.”—2025 Hilary Weston Prize Jury (Matthew R. Morris, Lorri Neilsen Glenn, and Niigaan Sinclair) 

Jury Citation

“Omar El Akkad’s chilling novel grips the reader from its first page and never lets go. After a ban on fossil fuels is imposed by the US government, the South refuses to comply, and America is riven by a second Civil War that grips a continent already shrunken by the effects of climate change. Through the enigmatic character of Sarat, we suffer the indignities of poverty and war, and tread the fine line between terrorist and freedom fighter. By building this nightmarish yet credible world, El Akkad exposes the way the politics of resentment and revenge can fester and self-propagate. American War is a rare beast indeed: it’s a war we wished would never end.” —2017 Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize Jury (Michael Christie, Christy Ann Conlin, and Tracey Lindberg)