5/19/2023 0 Comments Omar el akkad![]() ![]() To be in this position, to have my name mentioned alongside so many of my literary heroes, whose works have meant so much to me over the years, is something that's going to take a very long time to process and fully digest. There was a time when I didn't think this book would be published, let alone have any resonance with anybody. How do you feel now that it has happened?Ī: I'm still trying to process it. Q: In a previous interview, you said you didn't want to think about winning and it would be life-changing if you did. The former Globe and Mail journalist and author of American War spoke with Perspectives about how he initially thought What Strange Paradise would derail his career, how he plans to donate a portion of the prize money and how comedy writing is next on his agenda. ![]() It's going to be a long time before I properly verbalize how much it means to me.” It’s of overwhelming magnitude for someone like me. ![]() “I'm still in a bit of a daze and trying to process it. “In three weeks time, it's suddenly going to hit me what actually happened,” El Akkad said in an interview. Since Omar El Akkad won the 2021 Scotiabank Giller Prize for his book What Strange Paradise, he has been flooded with congratulatory well wishes – including from Toronto’s mayor, the Egyptian ambassador to Canada and long-lost friends.īack home in Portland, Ore., after attending last week’s Toronto gala where he accepted one of the biggest prizes in Canadian literature and the $100,000 that comes with it, he says it still hasn’t registered. ![]()
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