Ayad Akhtar is a Pakistani-American novelist and playwright, born in 1970 in New York City. His childhood in Milwaukee, growing up as a Pakistani in the upper midwest, became the foundation of a first novel,
American Dervish(2012), a story of assimilation raising questions of religion and cultural identity that characterise immigrant communities and their first generation American-born children. These same questions of cultural identity continue to inform much of his work, both in the novels and stage plays.
Akhtar’s first play, Disgraced (2013), premiered at the American Theater Company in Chicago, followed by staging at Lincoln Center Theater in New York. A dinner party consisting of two interethnic, interreligious couples degenerates as religious stereotypes, jealousies over past
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Citation: Waterman, David. "Disgraced". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 08 December 2020 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=39073, accessed 21 November 2024.]
