“[A] bracing memoir and manifesto. . . . With precision and passion, [El Akkad] compels readers to close the emotional distance between ‘us’ and ‘them’ and to consider the immense suffering of civilians with renewed urgency.” —The New York Times“A bracing case for empathy. . . . What would it take to render a horror ‘over there’ equally real to one ‘over here’? How do we lie to ourselves so convincingly, and what is the cost of those lies? These questions burn and throb with a haunting clarity [in One Day]. . . . El Akkad is . . . a moral meteorologist. . . . It reminds me of a story I heard once, about the late Toronto filmmaker Charles Officer, who was asked why he makes films that preach to the choir. It is because the choir must be fortified, he answered. El Akkad is tending to an exhausted choir, so that its song may ring clear.” —The Washington Post“Fiercely agonized. . . . [Omar El Akkad’s] book is a distraught but eloquent cry against our tolerance for other people’s calamities.” —The New York Times Book Review (cover)“A thoughtful, heartfelt, and ultimately heartbroken missive from an immigrant to his second home—a country whose vaunted values, never fulfilled, now seem almost a mockery. Echoing Baldwin, El Akkad writes from anger and love.” —The Boston Globe“One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This strikes with the clarifying force of an angel. By turns furiously troubled and achingly introspective, El Akkad sets fire to the devourous genocidal abyss we call a civilization and all the billion mendacities that sustain it. A landmark of truth-telling and moral courage, One Day is the truest most necessary book you will ever read.” —Junot Díaz, author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao“I can’t think of a more important piece of writing to read right now. Doom and gloom and unspeakable horror abound and overwhelm these days, but it remains important to understand what we already know is happening now and how it will be understood in the future