The Radiance: A Novel
Sep 2026 · Sold by Simon and Schuster
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304
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NATIONAL BESTSELLER
Most Anticipated Books of the Year by Time · Best Books of September by The New York Times and NPR · Best Books of Fall by The Boston Globe · A Must-Read of September by Vulture
“Alive...vivid...heartfelt.” —AO Scott, The New York Times
“A towering accomplishment.” —Theo Baker, New York Times bestselling author of How to Rule the World
A mysterious accident along a country road sparks an awakening and an investigation in Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright and acclaimed novelist Ayad Akhtar’s most daring work yet—a visionary novel of spiritual transformation in an age of fracture—“bordering at times on the ineffable” (Mary Gaitskill, bestselling author of Bad Behavior).
When a hit-and-run shatters more than his body, a writer is plunged into a spiritual awakening he can’t tell from madness. In its grip, he’s drawn to a brilliant campus colleague by an uncanny pull, and into a scandal that threatens to destroy them both. What begins as a provocative portrait of academic and cultural warfare deepens into erotic entanglement, the exposure of a family secret, and the mystery surrounding the narrator’s accident—both the violence and its aftermath.
Moving between rural America and Europe, Islam and Christianity, the intimate and the metaphysical, The Radiance is of our American moment and beyond it—asking not only what has broken, but what radiance remains.
Most Anticipated Books of the Year by Time · Best Books of September by The New York Times and NPR · Best Books of Fall by The Boston Globe · A Must-Read of September by Vulture
“Alive...vivid...heartfelt.” —AO Scott, The New York Times
“A towering accomplishment.” —Theo Baker, New York Times bestselling author of How to Rule the World
A mysterious accident along a country road sparks an awakening and an investigation in Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright and acclaimed novelist Ayad Akhtar’s most daring work yet—a visionary novel of spiritual transformation in an age of fracture—“bordering at times on the ineffable” (Mary Gaitskill, bestselling author of Bad Behavior).
When a hit-and-run shatters more than his body, a writer is plunged into a spiritual awakening he can’t tell from madness. In its grip, he’s drawn to a brilliant campus colleague by an uncanny pull, and into a scandal that threatens to destroy them both. What begins as a provocative portrait of academic and cultural warfare deepens into erotic entanglement, the exposure of a family secret, and the mystery surrounding the narrator’s accident—both the violence and its aftermath.
Moving between rural America and Europe, Islam and Christianity, the intimate and the metaphysical, The Radiance is of our American moment and beyond it—asking not only what has broken, but what radiance remains.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
Most Anticipated Books of the Year by Time · Best Books of September by The New York Times and NPR · Best Books of Fall by The Boston Globe · A Must-Read of September by Vulture
“Alive...vivid...heartfelt.” —AO Scott, The New York Times
“A towering accomplishment.” —Theo Bak...
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About the author
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, among other honors. Akhtar is the author of the novels American Dervish, a Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year, and Homeland Elegies, named one of 10 Best Books of 2020 by The New York Times. He has also authored the plays McNeal, Junk, Disgraced, The Who & The What, and The Invisible Hand. Akhtar was named the New York State Author in 2021.
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, among other...
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