Photo: Jeremy Chan, Neilson Barnard/The New Yorker via Getty Images
Two Portland-based writers are among more than two dozen finalists for the 2025 National Book Award, which honors excellence in literature.
Zoom in:Omar El Akkad's nonfiction debut "One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This," is nominated in the nonfiction category. It questions the promise of freedom in the West through the lens of recent events, like the Black Lives Matter movement and the war in Gaza.
"The Antidote" by Karen Russell, who has written six books and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2012, is nominated in fiction. Her novel revisits the historic dust bowl in Nebraska and follows a witch who carries the residents' memories.
