What Strange Paradise

Deserves to be an instant classic. I haven’t loved a book this much in a long time … What Strange Paradise … reads as a parable for our times … Such beautiful writing … This is an extraordinary book. * New York Times *Riveting … Nothing I’ve read before has given me such a visceral sense of the grisly predicament confronted by millions of people expelled from their homes by conflict and climate change. * Washington Post *‘So gripping a page-turner that its brutal message feels organic … Through wisdom imparted by various characters, the reader receives new perspectives; the privileged Western reader in particular is confronted with him- or herself in an uncomfortable way.’ * Toronto Globe and Mail *Hope and despair, past and present, possibility and unlikelihood, kindheartedness and cruelty — they all fill the pages of this book with an exploration of all the sides of humanity. – NPR[What Strange Paradise is] simple in the way that novels like [Camus’s] The Stranger or [Steinbeck’s] Of Mice and Men are: brief, taut, cooly delivered but with seas of emotion swirling underneath. * Minneapolis Star Tribune/Seattle Times *Impassioned and richly detailed, What Strange Paradise moves like a thriller and punches like a work of art. With this haunting story of refugees, high seas, sharks and Samaritans, Omar El Akkad continues on his impressive exploration of our contemporary world. – Aravind Adiga, author of The White Tiger and AmnestyResuscitated my heart. This novel – following a boy who survives a refugee passage, and a girl whose homeland feels fractured – dares to unite us on the shore of shared human experience, and redefines hope in the face of despair. – Lidia Yuknavitch, author of The Chronology of WaterIt is one thing to put a human face on a migrant crisis and another to do so in so compelling a way that a reader simply cannot put your book down. I read this in one sitting, my heart pounding the whole way – in a strange paradise, you might say. Marvelous. – Gish Jen, author of The ResistorsWhat an imaginative, touching, and necessary novel Omar El Akkad has brought to us. It reminds us of the human stories behind headlines and statistics, and gives us one of the most memorable children characters, whose story adds urgency and poignancy to that “awfully big adventure” stated by Peter Pan. – Yiyun Li, author of Where Reasons EndTremendously written … Omar El Akkad writes with such emotional precision, power, and grace … The book devastates and uplifts, somehow, and we are not left with hope – that isn’t the point – but asked to witness, to see what is here, with clarity, and with fullness of heart. – Tommy Orange, author of There, There

Omar El Akkad is the author of American War and What Strange Paradise. Born in Cairo, Egypt, he was raised in Doha, Qatar, until he moved to Canada with his family. He is an award-winning journalist and author who has covered the NATO-led war in Afghanistan, the military trials at Guantanamo Bay, the Arab Spring revolution in Egypt, the Black Lives Matter movement in Ferguson, Missouri, and many other of the most important events of the last decade. He is a recipient of Canada’s National Newspaper Award for investigative reporting and the Goff Penny Memorial Prize for Young Canadian Journalists, as well as three National Magazine Award honourable mentions. He lives in Portland, Oregon.