Omar El Akkad is an Egyptian Canadian author and journalist. He has reported from Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay, and numerous other locations around the world. He is the recipient of Canada’s National Newspaper Award for Investigative Journalism and the Goff Penny Award for young journalists. His debut novel, American War, is an international bestseller and has been translated into a dozen languages. It won the Pacific Northwest Booksellers’ Award and the Oregon Book Award for fiction, and has been nominated for eight other awards. Omar lives in the woods just south of Portland.