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    American War: A Novel
    Unavailable
    American War: A Novel
    Unavailable
    American War: A Novel
    Audiobook12 hours

    American War: A Novel

    Written by Omar El Akkad

    Narrated by Dion Graham

    4.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    An audacious and powerful debut novel: a second American Civil War, a devastating plague, and one family caught deep in the middle-a story that asks what might happen if America were to turn its most devastating policies and deadly weapons upon itself.

    Sarat Chestnut, born in Louisiana, is only six when the Second American Civil War breaks out in 2074. But even she knows that oil is outlawed, that Louisiana is half underwater, and that unmanned drones fill the sky. When her father is killed and her family is forced into Camp Patience for displaced persons, she begins to grow up shaped by her particular time and place. But not everyone at Camp Patience is who they claim to be. Eventually Sarat is befriended by a mysterious functionary, under whose influence she is turned into a deadly instrument of war. The decisions that she makes will have tremendous consequences not just for Sarat but for her family and her country, rippling through generations of strangers and kin alike.

    From the Hardcover edition.

    Editor's Note

    Breathtaking post-apocalyptic novel…

    “American War” is breathtaking. Elegiac. Timely. And so much more. El Akkad works as a journalist and his profession shows. He handily describes an America that’s familiar but shockingly different, altered as it would be by a century of strife and climate change.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateApr 4, 2017
    ISBN9781524779801
    Unavailable
    American War: A Novel
    Author

    Omar El Akkad

    Omar El Akkad is an author and journalist. He was born in Egypt, grew up in Qatar, moved to Canada as a teenager and now lives in the United States. The start of his journalism career coincided with the start of the war on terror, and over the following decade he reported from Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay and many other locations around the world. His work earned a National Newspaper Award for Investigative Journalism and the Goff Penny Award for young journalists. His fiction and non-fiction writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Guardian, Le Monde, Guernica, GQ and many other newspapers and magazines. His debut novel, American War, is an international bestseller and has been translated into thirteen languages. It won the Pacific Northwest Booksellers’ Award, the Oregon Book Award for fiction, the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize and has been nominated for more than ten other awards. It was listed as one of the best books of the year by the New York Times, Washington Post, GQ, NPR, Esquire and was selected by the BBC as one of 100 novels that changed our world. His short story 'Government Slots' was selected for the Best Canadian Stories 2020 anthology. What Strange Paradise is his second novel.

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    Reviews for American War

    4.5/5

    89 ratings5 reviews

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    • 5/5
      This is a very serious book. I was hooked from the beginning.
    • 5/5
      So so so so so so good. And painfully relevant.
    • 5/5
      There is so much to like about this book, starting with the fact that it’s speculative fiction set 60 years hence and was written three years ago (at the time of this review on 2019) and yet it feels so real and current and note-perfect now that I was shaken and almost stunned. The milieu and socio-political backdrop drive the book and its plot, but the characters are also strong. The central character is vivid and compelling. The audio book performance is fantastic, imbuing the unadorned writing with the gravitas it has latently but that might be lost without the actor’s rendition. I’m sad this is the world my children will grow old in.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      If you are into history and rather watches documentaries than action movies this is the perfect book for you. I also think this book would be more enjoyable for an American than for me. I'm European and I like action movies :) but it is still a good story and well written, a bit slow though.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      I found this audio very powerful. Apart from the flawless recital the story itself is compelling, shocking and incredibly moving. It relates the fortunes of a family from the South in a future war between north and South in North America. The premise is believable and the style is direct, stark yet poignant prose that relates the fortunes of those involved in the American War.

      2 people found this helpful