The Detour: American Fictions

Join us on Sundays at 7:00 a.m. for episodes of The Detour, a show about people and ideas from Oregon Humanities. Listen live at 99.1 FM in the heart of Portland, or online anywhere at PRP.fm.

In this episode, we discuss the fictions, myths, and hopes that the United States of America produces and depends on. We spoke with Mitchell S. Jackson, author of The Residue Years and Survival Math, about the dream of homeownership and all it contains, and Omar El Akkad, author of American War and What Strange Paradise, about the self-evident truths we claim to hold within this nation’s borders.

Mitchell S. Jackson is a Pulitzer prize–winning author and essayist and a professor at Arizona State University. He grew up in Portland, Oregon, and his books The Residue Years and Survival Math: Notes on an All-American Family present a crackling portrait of a Portland you won’t get in the New York Times: racially and economically complicated, full of barriers and of opportunities, and above all alive in language, ambition, and strong human connection.

Omar El Akkad is an author and journalist. His fiction and nonfiction has appeared in the New York Times, the Guardian, Le Monde, Guernica, GQ, and many other outlets, and he has written two powerful and celebrated novels, American War and What Strange Paradise. He was born in Egypt, grew up in Qatar, moved to Canada as a teenager, and now lives in Portland, Oregon. He has reported from Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay, and many other locations around the world.

For a full transcript of this episode as well as additional resources and further reading, visit the Oregon Humanities website.