Omar El Akkad began writing fiction while working as a journalist, leading to two novels and an essay collection: American War, What Strange Paradise and One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This. Omar joins us to talk about the relationship between journalism and fiction writing, worldbuilding, living in translation, interiority and inversion with host Miwa Messer.

This episode of Poured Over was hosted by Miwa Messer and mixed by Harry Liang.

New episodes land Tuesdays and Thursdays (with occasional Saturdays) here and on your favorite podcast app.

Featured Books (Episode): American War by Omar El Akkad What Strange Paradise by Omar El Akkad One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson A Bright Shining Lie by Neil Sheehan There's Always This Year by Hanif Abdurraqib