Rabih Alameddine wins the National Book Award for Fiction for a darkly comic saga spanning six decades books

Rabih Alameddine won the National Book Award for Fiction for “The True Story of Naive Raja (and His Mother),” a darkly comic tale that spans six decades of the life of a Lebanese family.

The novel, which explores Lebanon’s sprawling history including civil war and economic collapse, is told through the eyes of its titular hero: a 63-year-old gay philosophy teacher who confronts his past and his relationship with his mother and his homeland.

True to his irreverent manner, Alamuddin, on stage, thanked his psychiatrist, gastroenterologists and drug dealers. “I shouldn’t say more about that,” he cracked.

Elsewhere in his acceptance speech, Alamuddin addressed the crises in both Gaza and the United States.

“I watched two videos this morning,” he said. “One of them was an ICE agent. The woman was on the asphalt, zip-tied. He came and hit her, then picked her up like trash and threw her in the back of the SUV.”

He continued that the second video showed “the Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon that was bombed and 12 people were killed. I kept thinking: They are making havoc and calling it a ceasefire. Sometimes, as writers, we have to say: Enough.”

Alamuddin’s speech on Wednesday evening capped a celebration full of powerful political victories. Many of the laureates – like the laureates of the past two years – used their speeches to reflect on the role of literature in the face of global tragedy.

“It is very difficult to think in a celebratory way about a book that was written in response to genocide,” said Omar Akkad, who won the non-fiction prize for his book One Day Everyone Will Always Be Against This. The book by the Egyptian Canadian author is a treatise on the Western response to Israel’s war on Gaza.

“It’s hard to think celebratory when I’ve spent two years seeing what shrapnel does to a child’s body,” he said. “When I know that my tax dollars do it, and that so many of my elected representatives gladly support it.”

Akkad was one of three first-time winners of the National Book Award. Each of the five categories received a prize of $10,000.

As for the Translated Literature Award, it went to the novel “We Are Green and We Tremble” by Argentine writer and first-time nominee Gabriela Cabezon Cámara, which was translated from the Spanish by Robin Myers.

“I will speak in Spanish, because there are fascists who don’t like it,” Cabezon Camara said to loud applause.

Daniel Nayeri, another first-time nominee, won the Young People’s Literature Award for his novel The Land of Nomads’ Teacher, the story of two Iranian brothers orphaned in World War II.

The Poetry Prize went to Patricia Smith for Thunder Intentions, a collection centered around the beauty and brutality of the black experience in the United States. She was previously a poetry finalist in 2008 for her book Blood Dazzler.

The ceremony, which was held at Cipriani Wall Street and included a performance from Corinne Bailey Rae, also included the presentation of two previously announced lifetime achievement awards to Roxane Gay and George Saunders.

In a rousing speech, Saunders called for the power of writing to dispel the myth of absolute power. “The bullies, the dictators, the bigots…they always know. They are absolutely sure,” he said.

“But we artists… have an advantage over the tyrants because… [we’re] In that case you don’t know. This puts us in a less illusory relationship with reality. The less illusion, the less suffering we cause.

The True Story of Naive Raja (and His Mother) by Rabih Alameddine (Little, Brown Book Group, £22). To support The Guardian, order your copy from guardianbookshop.com. Delivery fees may apply.