Ayad akhtar biography of barack obama
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AN ECONOMIST, NEW YORK TIMES AND WASHINGTON POST BOOK OF THE YEAR
'Outstanding... it is hard to convey the breadth and brilliance of this work' Observer
'A beautiful novel about an American son and his immigrant father that has echoes of THE GREAT GATSBY' New York Times
A 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 ... Read moreof 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.
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Headline Publishing Group
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London, United Kingdom
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About Ayad Akhtar
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 Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2012. His plays include Disgraced (Lincoln Center, Broadway; Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Tony nomination) and ... Read moreThe Invisible Hand (NYTW; Obie Award, Outer Critics Circle John Gassner Award, Olivier, and Evening Standa
Ayad Akhtar
American actor and playwright
Ayad Akhtar (born October 28, 1970) is an American playwright, novelist, and screenwriter. He has received numerous accolades including the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Drama as well as nominations for two Tony Awards.
Akhtar is known as a playwright covering various themes including the American-Muslim experience, racism, religion, economics, immigration, and identity. For his work on Broadway, Akhtar received Tony Award for Best Play nominations for Disgraced (2015) and Junk (2017). He also authored the plays The Who & The What, The Invisible Hand and McNeal. His plays have been produced on Broadway, off-Broadway, and in London.
He earned acclaim for authoring two novels American Dervish (2012) and Homeland Elegies (2020). He received numerous awards including the American Book Award for the later. He co-wrote and starred in the political drama film The War Within (2005) for which he was nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Screenplay. He portrayed Neel Kashkari in the HBO television film Too Big to Fail (2010).
Early life and education
Akhtar was born in Staten Island, New York City to Pakistani parents, and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His interest in literature was initially sparked in high school. Akhtar attended Brown University, where he majored in theater and religion and began acting and directing student plays.
After graduation he moved to Italy to work with Jerzy Grotowski, eventually becoming his assistant. Upon returning to the United States, Akhtar taught acting alongside Andre Gregory and earned his Master of Fine Arts degree in film directing from Columbia University School of the Arts.
Career
In 2012, Akhtar published his first novel American Dervish, a coming-of-age story about a Pakistani-American boy growing up in Milwaukee. The book was met with critical acclaim, described by The New York Tim 2020 novel by Ayad Akhtar Homeland Elegies is a novel by author Ayad Akhtar. The book is fiction, though written to resemble a memoir. It includes some autobiographical elements; the protagonist shares the name, background, and career of the author.Homeland Elegies has been referred to as autofiction. Akhtar has spoken about wanting the effect of the novel to be like scrolling through social media: "It's essay. It's memoir. It's fiction. It just had to be seamless, in the way that a platform like Instagram is seamless. And one of the pivotal dimensions of that content is the staging and curation of the self." He adds that crafting the book in the first person, and calling the narrator "Ayad Akhtar" allows him "to have a relationship to the reader that felt more immediate than fiction. But I only know how to write fiction ... I wouldn't have known how to write a memoir." The idea for writing Homeland Elegies came to Akhtar while he was in Rome, reading Giacomo Leopardi's Canti. The first poem "To Italy" inspired him to write a novel about America, that "seemed on the verge of splitting apart".Homeland Elegies begins with "An Overture to America" and then is divided into eight sections, followed by a coda entitled "Free Speech". Akhtar modeled sections off of different Tolstoy novellas: "V. Riaz; or the Merchant of Death" off of Hadji Murad; "VI. Of Love and Death" off of The Kreutzer Sonata; and "VIII. Langford v. Reliant; or, How My Father's American Story Ends" off of The Death of Ivan Ilych. The book comments on the recent political and financial history of the United States including the election of Donald Trump, the September 11 attacks, and America's debt-fueled economy. According to Book Marks, the book received a "rave" consensus, .
Homeland Elegies
Writing and background
Reception
Critical reception