Order of Ayad Akhtar Books

Ayad Akhtar is an American author, playwright, and screenwriter. He is best known in the world of books for his book, Homeland Elegies. That book made it to many best of the year list including being an O Magazine Book of the Year, a Kirkus Reviews Book of the Year, and a Slate Best Book of 202.

Akhtar has also received awards and great reviews for American Dervish, his 2012 debut. He has also done very well in the word of playwrighting. He has received two Tony Award nominations for Best Play during his career. In 2013, Ayad received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Plays

If You Like Ayad Akhtar Books, You’ll Love…

• James McBride
• Isabel Wilkerson
• Yaa Gyasi

Homeland Elegies is a deeply personal book from Akhtar about an immigrant father and son’s search for belonging in America. The story manages to blend fact and fiction to tell the story of identity and belonging in a nation that was forever changed by 9/11. The story tells of a family who emigrated to Wisconsin from Pakistan. His mother never quite adapts to America while his father is a talented surgeon who is enthusiastic about being American. While the son grows up as an upper middle class kid in Wisconsin that becomes a struggling writer in New York and, eventually, a public intellectual of great renown. The book also tells a broader story of the the Muslim experience in America. A unique mix of memoir, fiction, nonfiction, and biography, this is a must-read.

Akhtar’s first book was American Dervish. This is the story of a young American high schooler named Hayat Shah who is in love for the first time. He had previously had a normal life of school, baseball, and video games. He was Pakistani in heritage, but an all-American boy. Then Mina arrives and everything in his world changes.