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Join Pulitzer Prize winner Ayad Akhtar for his reflections on identity and belonging in a nation coming apart at the seams.
A playwright, novelist and screenwriter translated into over 20 languages, Ayad Akhtar is one of the most powerful voices in contemporary American letters, a critically renowned, multi-award winning figure whose works “are as essential today as the work of Saul Bellow, James Farrell, and Vladimir Nabokov were in the 20th century” (The Economist).
Walking a fine line between fact and fiction, memoir and novel, his new book Homeland Elegies is ‘passionate, disturbing, unputdownable’ (Salman Rushdie) – a work written in love and in anger that spares no-one – least of all the author himself.
In a story that ranges from the heartland towns of middle America to palatial suites in Davos 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.
Join him in conversation with internationally renowned cultural curator and author Sirish Rao to explore reunion and belonging in the age of Trump.
*Please note this event is hosted by the How to Academy in London and takes place at 10:30 am PDT (if you see references to 6:30pm when you register that refers to BST/London time).
Speakers
Ayad Akhtar is a playwright, novelist, the winner of the Pulitzer Prize and an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He is the author of AMERICAN DERVISH, published in over 20 languages and named a KirkusReviews Best Book of 2012. His plays include Disgraced (Lincoln Center, Broadway; Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Tony nomination) and The Invisible Hand (NYTW; ObieAward, Outer Critics Circle John Gassner Award, Olivier, and Evening Standard nominations). As a screenwriter, he was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best Screenplay for The War Within.
Sirish Rao is a writer, producer, cultural curator with deep connections to the international cultural world. He spent a decade as Director of one of India’s most respected publishing houses and has worked in event production in India, the UK and Europe. Sirish has authored twenty books, from commentaries on street art to children’s books, to retellings of Greek plays. His books have been translated into seventeen languages and won several international awards.