University of Scranton Weinberg Library Distinguished Author Award with Ayad Akhtar

Book Signing and Meet the Author
5:00 pm: DeNaples Center, 2nd-floor Lobby

Distinguished Author Reception and Award Presentation
with Cocktails, Hors d'oeuvres, Dinner and Desserts
6:00 pm: DeNaples Center, McIlhenny Ballroom.

Distinguished Author Keynote
7:00 pm: DeNaples Center, McIlhenny Ballroom

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.
Akhtar is the author of Homeland Elegies (Little, Brown and Co.), which The Washington Post called "a tour de force" and The New York Times called "a beautiful novel...that had echoes of The Great Gatsby and that circles, with pointed intellect, the possibilities and limitations of American life." His first novel, American Dervish (Little, Brown and Co.), was published in over 20 languages. As a playwright, he has written Junk (Lincoln Center, Broadway; Kennedy Prize for American Drama, Tony nomination); Disgraced (Lincoln Center, Broadway; Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Tony nomination); The Who and The What (Lincoln Center); and The Invisible Hand (NYTW; Obie Award, Outer Critics Circle John Gassner Award, Olivier, and Evening Standard nominations).

Among other honors, Akhtar is the recipient of the Steinberg Playwrighting Award, the Nestroy Award, the Erwin Piscator Award, as well as fellowships from the American Academy in Rome, MacDowell, the Sundance Institute, and Yaddo, where he serves as a Board Director. Additionally, Ayad is a Board Trustee at New York Theatre Workshop, and PEN America, where he serves as President. In 2021, Akhtar was named the New York State Author, succeeding Colson Whitehead, by the New York State Writers Institute.

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Category: Arts | Books and Literature