Omar 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. A two-time winner of both the Pacific Northwest Booksellers’ Award and the Oregon Book Award, his books have been translated into 13 languages. His debut novel American War was named by the BBC as one of 100 novels that shaped our world and was Writers & Books’ 2019 Rochester Reads selection. His novel What Strange Paradise (Penguin Random House, 2021) received the Giller Prize and was selected for the 2022 edition of Canada Reads. Published by Knopf in 2025, his New York Times bestselling One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This has been described by author Téa Obreht as “part elegy, part rallying cry . . . required reading for future generations trying to reckon with one of humanity’s darkest chapters.”