Ayad Akhtar (presented by Seattle Arts & Lectures)
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When a hit-and-run shatters more than his body, a writer is pulled toward revelation—and into a scandal that could destroy everything. Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright and novelist Ayad Akhtar’s most daring work yet: The Radiance is visionary novel of spiritual transformation in an age of fracture.
What begins as a provocative portrait of academic and cultural warfare deepens into something stranger and more profound — erotic entanglement, a buried family secret, and an uncanny pull toward the metaphysical. Moving between rural America and Europe, Islam and Christianity, the intimate and the cosmic, The Radiance asks not only what has broken, but what radiance remains.
Ayad Akhtar is a novelist and playwright. His work has been published and performed in over two dozen languages. He is the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the Edith Wharton Citation of Merit for Fiction, and an award in literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, among other honors. Akhtar is the author of the novels American Dervish, a Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year, and Homeland Elegies, named one of 10 Best Books of 2020 by The New York Times. He has also authored the plays McNeal, Junk, Disgraced, The Who & The What, and The Invisible Hand. Akhtar was named the New York State Author in 2021.
When a hit-and-run shatters more than his body, a writer is pulled toward revelation—and into a scandal that could destroy everything. Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright and novelist Ayad Akhtar’s most daring work yet: The Radiance is visionary novel of spiritual transformation in an age of fracture.
What begins as a provocative portrait of academic and cultural warfare deepens into something stranger and more profound — erotic entanglement, a buried family secret, and an uncanny pull toward the metaphysical. Moving between rural America and Europe, Islam and Christianity, the intimate and the cosmic, The Radiance asks not only what has broken, but what radiance remains.
Ayad Akhtar is a novelist and playwright. His work has been published and performed in over two dozen languages. He is the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the Edith Wharton Citation of Merit for Fiction, and an award in literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, among other honors. Akhtar is the author of the novels American Dervish, a Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year, and Homeland Elegies, named one of 10 Best Books of 2020 by The New York Times. He has also authored the plays McNeal, Junk, Disgraced, The Who & The What, and The Invisible Hand. Akhtar was named the New York State Author in 2021.
Where is it happening?
Town Hall Seattle, 1119 8th Ave,Seattle,WA,United States
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Host or PublisherSeattle Arts & Lectures
