LibGuides: Ayad Akhtar: Home

Akhtar's Writing

Works are ordered newest first.

Want to read Akhtar's works as ebooks on your device? Links to library ebooks are below. Refer to Hamersly Library's ebook guide for instructions.

Junk: A Play by Ayad Akhtar
Call Number: PS3601.K53 J86 2017. Also available as an ebook
Publication Date: 2017
Set in 1985, Junk tells the story of Robert Merkin, resident genius of the upstart investment firm Sacker Lowell. Hailed as “America’s Alchemist,” his proclamation that “debt is an asset” has propelled him to a dizzying level of success. By orchestrating the takeover of a massive steel manufacturer, Merkin intends to do the “deal of the decade,” the one that will rewrite all the rules. Working on his broadest canvas to date, Pulitzer Prize winner Ayad Akhtar chronicles the lives of men and women engaged in financial civil war: insatiable investors, threatened workers, killer lawyers, skeptical journalists, and ambitious federal prosecutors. Although it’s set 40 years in the past, this is a play about the world we live in right now; a world in which money became the only thing of real value.
The Invisible Hand: A Play by Ayad Akhtar
Call Number: PS3601.K53 I58 2015
Publication Date: 2015
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 Who and the What: A Play by Ayad Akhtar
Call Number: PS3601.K53 W48 2015
Publication Date: 2014
Smashing together references to Big love and David Letterman with quotes from the Prophet Muhammad and academic arguments about gender politics, this work treads on sensitive matters regarding Islam.
Disgraced: A Play by Ayad Akhtar
Call Number: PS3601.K53 J86 2017 Also available as an ebook
Publication Date: 2013
Pulitzer Prize winner for Drama.
New 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.

Script is also published in American Theater 30, no. 6: 68-80.
American Dervish by Ayad Akhtar
Call Number: PS3601.K48 A44 2012. Also available as an ebook
Publication Date: 2012
A young Pakistani boy, whose parents left the fundamentalists behind when they came to America, finds transformation and a path to happiness through a family friend, Mina, who shows him the beauty and power of the Quran.
The War Within by Ayad Akhtar
Call Number: Video collection: PN1997.2 .W37 2005. Also available to rent or own through several online platforms
Publication Date: 2005
A Pakistani involved in a planned attack in New York City experiences a crisis of conscience. Ayad Akhtar wrote the screenplay and acts.

Akhtar's expressions besides his books

Twitter
Facebook
Website (currently unavailable)
As of August 30, 2018, Akhtar's site is being redesigned and there is no content. Please email me if you see it's now available. Thanks!
"'One Mind, One Heart, One Body'."
Essay published in The New York Times, adapted from his speech accepting the 2017 Steinberg Playwright Award.
Also available on publisher's website (different title, and access subject to personal paywall restrictions).
Book Notes: Playlist for American Dervish
Akhtar writes as introduction to the playlist:
"There isn't much music in American Dervish, at least not in the story itself. But music pervaded the writing process. And there was a version of the book that was almost twice as long, and in which characters were listening to CCR or Mehdi Hassan. But those passing references, like whole story lines that weren't serving the book, got cut. What's more, listening to music is part of my writing ritual. And I listened to no one or nothing as much as I did Beethoven. What an enormous pleasure it is to have the chance to revisit the emotional trails lost in the edit, and the hidden sources of so much of the book's inspiration."

Akhar speaking at TEDxBroadway

Resources compiled by Janeanne Rockwell-Kincanon, Associate Professor, Public Services Librarian. Email me.

Media coverage of Akhtar

Videos and articles, ordered newest first within each category.

Article from Esquire
Westenfeld, Adrienne. "Ayad Akhtar." Esquire (December 2017): 64. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost.
Article from Time Magazine
Feldman, Lucy. "Ayad Akhtar." American Voices series. Time, 190, no. 20 (November 13, 2017): 62. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost. Also available on publication's website.

Articles from The New York Times:

Listed newest first. Links on article titles are to Hamersly Library's access to The New York Times through the database Business Insights: Global. Links "on publisher's website" are provided for convenience but are subject to personal paywall restrictions.

Brantley, Ben. "The Era Of Debt And Duplicity." November 3, 2017: C1(L). Also available on publisher's website.
- Review of Lincoln Center Theater production of Junk.
Sokolove, Michael. "Following the Money." September 10, 2017: 22(L). Also available on publisher's website.
- Interview with and feature on Akhtar concurrent with the publication of Junk.
Paulson, Michael. "American Identity, Muslim Identity." October 26, 2014: 1(L). Also available on publisher's website.
- Joint interview with G. Willow Wilson and Musa Syeed about the representation of American Muslims in popular culture.
Soloski, Alexis. "A Writer's Unusual Rituals Yield Results." September 23, 2012: 6(L). Also available on publisher's website.
- Interview with and feature on Akhtar prior to the New York production of Disgraced.
Langer, Adam. "Stumbling through an American Muslim maze." January 5, 2012: C7(L). Also available on publisher's website.
- Review of American Dervish.