NOVEMBER 2020 - AudioFile
Pulitzer-winning playwright Ayad Akhtar narrates his somewhat autobiographical novel, an outstanding chronicle of an upper-middle- class immigrant Pakistani family's experience in America and an indictment of contemporary American politics and economics. Akhtar narrates from the point of view of the protagonist, the eponymously named Ayad Akhtar, who describes his family's rise to the embodiment of the American dream and subsequent disillusionment with the U.S. in the wake of 9/11 and the election of Donald Trump to the presidency. Akhtar's pacing is comfortable, and his tone confident; he is a natural reader, particularly for his own work. The Pakistani accent he employs for the protagonist's family members adds a realistic and endearing touch that helps to distinguish and personalize the characters. S.E.G. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine
From the Publisher
"An unflinchingly honest self-portrait by a brilliant Muslim-American writer, and, beyond that, an unsparing examination of both sides of that fraught hyphenated reality. Passionate, disturbing, unputdownable."—Salman Rushdie
"An urgent, intimate hybrid of memoir and fiction, Homeland Elegies thrusts us into the heart of a father-son relationship and, in the process-improbably-does nothing short of laying bare the broken heart of our American dream turned reality TV nightmare. The book's dissection of the deeply human desire to aspire and dream, and its illumination of the quest for success, brilliantly captures how we got to this exact moment in time and at what cost. Stunning."—A. M. Homes, author of This Book Will Save Your Life and Days of Awe
"At the core of this flashing, kinetic coil of a story — part 1001 Nights, part Reality TV — is a passionate, wrenching portrayal of Americans exiled into 'otherness'."—Jennifer Egan, author of Manhattan Beach and A Visit From the Goon Squad
"With Homeland Elegies, Ayad Akhtar has found the perfect hybrid form for his exuberant, insightful, and wickedly entertaining epic about Muslim immigrants and their American-born children. A deeply moving father-and-son story unfolds against tumultuous current events in a book that anyone wanting to know how we as a nation got where we are today — and into what dark wood we might be heading tomorrow — should read."—Sigrid Nunez, author of The Friend
"Homeland Elegies is the astonishing work of an absolutely brilliant writer. With exquisite prose and lacerating honesty, Ayad Akhtar reveals the intersections of art, finance, race, religion, academia, and empire, and in the process, shows us a troubled reflection of our country in the twenty-first century."—Phil Klay, author of Redeployment
"A triumph. Akhtar rages, he sings, he indicts, he falls in love, he sorrows, he dreams, he mourns, he transcribes!-and finally, he transmutes injustice into the sublimest art."—Joshua Ferris, author of The Dinner Party and Then We Came to the End
"Ayad Akhtar offers up his heart and life with an honesty that astonishes. Never have I experienced such a reading thrill. I put down this novel trembling at the courage it took to write it, and determined to be a better American for having read it."—Maria Semple, author of Where'd You Go, Bernadette
"Homeland Elegies is urgent, lacerating writing of the first order from one of our finest playwrights. A sensation of a book."—Suketu Mehta, author of This Land Is Our Land: An Immigrant's Manifesto and Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found
"A beautifully rendered account of the struggle to belong in America today, Homeland Elegies takes you into the very heart of hyphenated identity. Erudite and vivid, its pages burst with vitality and intelligence."—Peter Godwin, author of When a Crocodile Eats the Sun and The Fear
Library Journal
04/01/2020
Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Akhtar blends social commentary and family drama—particularly, the story of a father and son—to examine issues of identity and belonging in disoriented post 9–11, Trump-primed America through the immigrant experience. Along the way, the plot takes in the American heartlands, guerrilla warfare in Afghanistan, and the World Economic Forum.
NOVEMBER 2020 - AudioFile
Pulitzer-winning playwright Ayad Akhtar narrates his somewhat autobiographical novel, an outstanding chronicle of an upper-middle- class immigrant Pakistani family's experience in America and an indictment of contemporary American politics and economics. Akhtar narrates from the point of view of the protagonist, the eponymously named Ayad Akhtar, who describes his family's rise to the embodiment of the American dream and subsequent disillusionment with the U.S. in the wake of 9/11 and the election of Donald Trump to the presidency. Akhtar's pacing is comfortable, and his tone confident; he is a natural reader, particularly for his own work. The Pakistani accent he employs for the protagonist's family members adds a realistic and endearing touch that helps to distinguish and personalize the characters. S.E.G. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine
