Echoes of a Fairytale in a Destructive Novel


Omer El Akkad’s new novel, “What a Strange Heaven” He uses some fairy tale-like techniques to interpret the migrant crisis caused by the war in the Middle East. El Akkad explains that he thinks of the novel as a reinterpretation of the story of Peter Pan, told as a contemporary refugee children’s story.

“There’s something Borges once said that all literature is a game, and no matter how clever your tricks are, they’re eventually discovered,” says El Akkad. “My tricks are not particularly clever. I lean too hard on the inversion. I wanted to take a comforting story that Westerners have been telling their children for the last hundred years, and I wanted to reverse it to tell a different story.” He continues: “At its core, it’s a book about dueling fantasies: fantasies of people who want to come to the West because they think it’s a cure for all ills, and fantasies of people who exist in the West and think about it. people are like barbarians at the door. The book takes place in the collision of these two fantasies.”

The Times reporters Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang visit the podcast this week to discuss their new book. “An Ugly Truth: In Facebook’s War for Domination” including how the company makes most of its strategic decisions.

“A lot of people think that a company like this, very sophisticated, with so many people with incredible pedigrees, has a plan in mind,” says Kang. “Actually, in most cases, they do it instantly. They make a lot of ad hoc decisions.”

Also in this week’s episode, Tina Jordan looks back at Book Review history as she celebrates her 125th anniversary; Alexandra Alter has news from the publishing world; and Emily Eakin and MJ Franklin talk about what they read. The host is Pamela Paul.

Here are the books discussed in this week’s “What We’ve Read” section:

We’d love to hear your thoughts on this episode and the Book Review podcast in general. you can send them books@nytimes.com.



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