A unique and eerily convincing masterwork, American War takes a scalpel to American politics, precisely dissecting it to see what would happen if their own policies were turned against them. The answer: inevitable, endless bloodshed.

In a disturbingly believable near future, the need for sustainable energy has torn the United States apart. The South wants to maintain the use of fossil fuels, even though the government in The North has outlawed them. Now, unmanned drones patrol the skies, and future martyrs walk the markets. For the first time in three hundred years, America is caught up in a civil war. Out of this turmoil comes Sarat Chestnut, a southern girl born into the ongoing conflict. At a displaced persons camp, a mysterious older man takes her under his wing, and while her family tries to survive, Sarat is made into a deadly instrument of war, with consequences for the entire nation.

Paperback: 432 pages
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
Date Published: Jan. 1, 2018
Subjects: Fiction / Literary

About the Author: Omar El Akkad’s debut novel, American War, has been translated into thirteen languages. It won the Pacific Northwest Booksellers’ Award, the Oregon Book Award, the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize and was selected by the BBC as one of 100 novels that changed our world. His short fiction, essays, and reporting have appeared in such places as The Guardian, Le Monde, Guernica, and the Best Canadian Stories anthology. His second novel, What Strange Paradise, will be published by Penguin Random House in July 2021.