American War cover art

American War

a dystopian novel of survival in a divided America, for fans of Station Eleven

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American War

By: Omar El Akkad
Narrated by: Dion Graham
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About this listen

A Best Book of the Year: The Guardian, The Observer, New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle and The Washington Post.

2074. America's future is Civil War. Sarat's reality is survival. They took her father, they took her home, they told her lies . . .

She didn't start this war, but she'll end it.

Omar El Akkad’s powerful debut novel imagines a dystopian future: a second American Civil War, a devastating plague and one family caught deep in the middle. In American War, we’re asked to consider what might happen if America were to turn its most devastating policies and deadly weapons against itself.

 Dystopian Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Political Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction War & Military

Critic Reviews

[An] exciting debut . . . what sets this impressive book apart from other dystopian novels is the fully realised plausibility of the scenario El Akkad’s created, the roots of which can be all too easily identified in the world around us today… As diverting a read as this engrossing novel is, American War should no doubt also be read as a cautionary tale.
Informed by writer El Akkad's experiences working as a journalist in Afghanistan and Egypt's Arab Spring, this is a timely and haunting book that reflects our uncertain era.
Impressive . . . the novel’s evocation of the future is so sharply observed and so anchored in an informed reading of present geopolitics that it is hard to resist . . . It comments intelligently on the world today, where displaced millions are broiling in camps or trying to eke out a better life elsewhere, at whatever cost.
[American War] creates as haunting a post-apocalyptic universe as Cormac McCarthy did in The Road, and as devastating a look at the fallout that national events have on an American family as Philip Roth did in The Plot Against America . . . El Akkad has written a novel that not only maps the harrowing effects of violence on one woman and her family, but also becomes a disturbing parable about the ruinous consequences of war on ordinary civilians. (Michiko Kakutani)
It is an ambitious concept and El Akkad . . . pulls it off in an imaginative feat of world building . . . American War is an assured debut and El Akkad’s experience as a war reporter lends a grisly realism to proceedings . . . A vivid and nightmarish vision of an all-too-conceivable future.
American War is an extraordinary novel. El Akkad’s story of a family caught up in the collapse of an empire is as harrowing as it is brilliant, and has an air of terrible relevance in these partisan times. (Emily St. John Mandel, author of Station Eleven)
[A] striking debut . . . El Akkad is well equipped to speculate on the way in which our present predicaments might spark brutal conflict: he has seen those conflicts for himself . . . the book’s politics and its situations are all too believable.
Disturbingly plausible . . . a tale of a future America torn asunder by its own political and tribal affiliations . . . The novel’s thriller premise notwithstanding, Akkad applies a literary writer’s care to his depiction of Sarat’s psychological unpacking and the sensory details of her life . . . Whether read as a cautionary tale of partisanship run amok, an allegory of past conflicts or a study of the psychology of war, American War is a deeply unsettling novel. The only comfort the story offers is that it’s a work of fiction. For the time being, anyway. (Justin Cronin)
The comment being made on the Trump administration is impossible to miss in this engaging novel . . . It paints a bleak picture pf the future of humanity if climate change and the divisions of our society are not addressed now.
All stars
Most relevant
I loved the concept of the book and thank the author for taking this huge topic - ourselves in the hands of a future America. With the world being so small not what happens in America impinges on the small lives of us all. The characters for the most part were real and full as was their setting. I found the torture scenes very hard going. I know it's torture, but it did go on a long time - and I had to take breaks, even skim a few pages. The ending shocked me because I thought we were going to get a cliche. Not so. Thank you to the author again.

Tackling the big questions. Thought provoking,

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Everything about this book was hard to get through, from the story itself moving slower than the pet turtle, to the narrator and his sharp intake of breath between sentences.

Absolute struggle

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