Ayad Akhtar

A mysterious accident along a country road sparks an awakening and investigation in Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and acclaimed novelist Ayad Akhtar's most daring work yet -- a visionary novel of spiritual transformation in an age of fracture. When a hit-and-run shatters more than his body, a writer is caught between revelation and madness as an uncanny pull toward a brilliant campus colleague ensnares him in a scandal that threatens to destroy them both. What begins as a provocative portrait of academic and cultural warfare deepens into erotic entanglement, the exposure of a family secret, and the mystery surrounding the narrator's accident--both the violence and its aftermath. Moving between rural America and Europe, Islam and Christianity, the intimate and the metaphysical, The Radiance is of our American moment and beyond it -- asking not only what has broken, but what radiance remains.

A NEW YORK TIMES, WASHINGTON POST AND ECONOMIST BOOK OF THE YEAR'I read it in a fever, swept up in the kind of rapture you fall into when your most audacious friend kicks off on a hilarious, outrageous, but deeply sincere rant' Torrey Peters, Guardian Books of the Summer'A beautiful novel about an American son and his immigrant father that has echoes of THE GREAT GATSBY' New York TimesA deeply personal novel of identity and belonging in a nation coming apart at the seams, HOMELAND ELEGIES blends fact and fiction to tell an epic story of belonging and dispossession in the world that 9/11 made. Part family drama, part satire, part picaresque, at its heart it is the story of a father and son, and the country they call home. Ranging from the heartland towns of America to palatial suites in Europe to guerrilla lookouts in the mountains of Afghanistan, Akhtar forges a narrative voice that is original as it is exuberantly entertaining. This is a world in which debt has ruined countless lives and the gods of finance rule, where immigrants live in fear and the unhealed wounds of 9/11 continue to wreak havoc. HOMELAND ELEGIES is a novel written in love and anger, which spares no one, least of all the author himself.

Nominated for the 2022 Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Affiliate Theatre You see we are prisoners of a corrupt country that is our own making. But don’t pretend you don’t participate. You do. Of course you do. American banker Nick Bright knows that his freedom comes at a price. Confined to a cell in rural Pakistan, every second counts. Who will decide his fate? His captors, or the whims of the market? Ayad Akhtar is a Pulitzer Prize-winner, two-time Tony Award-nominee and winner of the Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. This newly revised edition of The Invisible Hand is published to coincide with the first major revival at London's Kiln Theatre in July 2021.

This "profound and provocative" work by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Disgraced and American Dervish followsan immigrant father and his son as they search for belonging--in post-Trump America, and with each other (Kirkus Reviews). "Passionate, disturbing, unputdownable." --Salman Rushdie A deeply personal work about identity and belonging in a nation coming apart at the seams, Homeland Elegies blends fact and fiction to tell an epic story of longing and dispossession in the world that 9/11 made. Part family drama, part social essay, part picaresque novel, at its heart it is the story of a father, a son, and the country they both call home. ​Ayad Akhtar forges a new narrative voice to capture a country in which debt has ruined countless lives and the gods of finance rule, where immigrants live in fear, and where the nation's unhealed wounds wreak havoc around the world. Akhtar attempts to make sense of it all through the lens of a story about one family, from a heartland town in America to palatial suites in Central Europe to guerrilla lookouts in the mountains of Afghanistan, and spares no one--least of all himself--in the process. One of the New York Times 10 Best Books of the YearOne of Barack Obama's Favorite Books of 2020Finalist for the 2021 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in FictionA Best Book of 2020 * Washington Post * O Magazine * New York Times Book Review * Publishers Weekly

“A continuously engaging, vitally engaged play about thorny questions of identity and religion in the contemporary world, with an accent on the incendiary topic of how radical Islam and the terrorism it inspires have affected the public discourse.” The New York TimesNew York. Today. Corporate lawyer Amir Kapoor is happy, in love, and about to land the biggest career promotion of his life. But beneath the veneer, success has come at a price. When Amir and his artist wife, Emily, host an intimate dinner party at their Upper East Side apartment, what starts out as a friendly conversation soon escalates into something far more damaging. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, 2013, Disgraced premiered in Chicago before transferring to New York’s Lincoln Center in 2012. This new Modern Classics edition features an introduction by J. T. Rogers.

A Yale Drama Series-winning play about self-defense, desire, and healing in the aftermath of a college rape Seven college students gather for a DIY self-defense workshop after a sorority sister is raped. They practice using their bodies as weapons. They wrestle with their desires. They learn the limits of self-defense. This new play by writer, director, actor, and community builder Liliana Padilla explores the intersection of sex, community, and what it means to heal in a violent world. Padilla shows how learning self-defense becomes a channel for these college students’ rage, anxiety, confusion, trauma, and desire. The play examines what one wants, how to ask for it, and the ways rape culture threatens one’s body and sense of belonging. It is the thirteenth winner of the Yale Drama Series prize and the second one chosen by Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright Ayad Akhtar.

This "profound and provocative" work by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Disgraced and American Dervish followsan immigrant father and his son as they search for belonging--in post-Trump America, and with each other (Kirkus Reviews). "Passionate, disturbing, unputdownable." --Salman Rushdie ​ A deeply personal work about identity and belonging in a nation coming apart at the seams, Homeland Elegies blends fact and fiction to tell an epic story of longing and dispossession in the world that 9/11 made. Part family drama, part social essay, part picaresque novel, at its heart it is the story of a father, a son, and the country they both call home. ​Ayad Akhtar forges a new narrative voice to capture a country in which debt has ruined countless lives and the gods of finance rule, where immigrants live in fear, and where the nation's unhealed wounds wreak havoc around the world. Akhtar attempts to make sense of it all through the lens of a story about one family, from a heartland town in America to palatial suites in Central Europe to guerrilla lookouts in the mountains of Afghanistan, and spares no one--least of all himself--in the process. One of the New York Times 10 Best Books of the YearOne of Barack Obama's Favorite Books of 2020Finalist for the 2021 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in FictionA Best Book of 2020 * Washington Post * O Magazine * New York Times Book Review * Publishers Weekly

A fast-paced economic thriller that probes the financial deal making behind the mergers and acquisitions boom of the 1980sThe Deal. The Board Room. The Takeover. This is the battleground where titanic egos collide, where modern day kings are made and unmade. It's a world where debt is an asset and assets are excuses for more debt, a world where finance runs the show. An upstart genius hell-bent on rocketing to the top, Robert Merkin has established himself as the most successful junk bond trader in the business. His next move-the take-over of a venerable multinational steel corporation-may signal the end of his reign as the king of finance. But how can he lose at a game when he's the only one making the rules? With JUNK, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ayad Akhtar takes us back to the hotbed of the '80s, offering us an origin story for the cutthroat world that finance has shaped and a dark, provocative take on the joys and sorrows of capitalist society.

A chilling examination of how far we will go to survive and the consequences of the choices we make. In remote Pakistan, Nick Bright awaits his fate. A successful financial trader, Nick is kidnapped by an Islamic militant group, but with no one negotiating his release, he agrees to an unusual plan. He will earn his own ransom by helping his captors manipulate and master the world commodities and currency markets.

The author of Homeland Elegies and Pulitzer Prize winner Disgraced explores the conflict that erupts within a Muslim family in Atlanta when an independent-minded daughter writes a provocative novel that offends her more conservative father and sister. Zarina has a bone to pick with the place of women in her Muslim faith, and she's been writing a book about the Prophet Muhammad that aims to set the record straight. When her traditional father and sister discover the manuscript, it threatens to tear her family apart. With humor and ferocity, Akhtar's incisive new drama about love, art, and religion examines the chasm between our traditions and our contemporary lives.

From the Pulitzer Prize winner for Drama and author of Homeland Elegies, a "sparkling and combustible" play about identity in America after September 11 (Bloomberg). "Everyone has been told that politics and religion are two subjects that should be off-limits at social gatherings. But watching these characters rip into these forbidden topics, there's no arguing that they make for ear-tickling good theater." --New York Times

A stirring and explosive debut novel about an American Muslim family's struggle with faith and belonging. From Pulitzer Prize winner Ayad Akhtar.

From the author of Homeland Elegies and Pulitzer Prize winner Disgraced, a stirring and explosive novel about an American Muslim family in Wisconsin struggling with faith and belonging in the pre-9/11 world. Hayat Shah is a young American in love for the first time. His normal life of school, baseball, and video games had previously been distinguished only by his Pakistani heritage and by the frequent chill between his parents, who fight over things he is too young to understand. Then Mina arrives, and everything changes. American Dervish is a brilliantly written, nuanced, and emotionally forceful look inside the interplay of religion and modern life.

From Pulitzer Prize winner Ayad Akhtar, a stirring and explosive debut novel about an American Muslim family in Michigan struggling with faith and belonging in the pre-9/11 world. Hayat Shah is a young American in love for the first time. His normal life of school, baseball, and video games had previously been distinguished only by his Pakistani heritage and by the frequent chill between his parents, who fight over things he is too young to understand. Then Mina arrives, and everything changes. American Dervish is a brilliantly written, nuanced, and emotionally forceful look inside the interplay of religion and modern life.