Homeland Elegies
First edition
AuthorAyad Akhtar
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
GenreFiction
PublisherLittle, Brown and Company
Publication date
September 15, 2020
Pages343 pages
ISBN978-0316496421

Homeland Elegies is a novel by author Ayad Akhtar.

Writing and background

The book is fiction, though written to resemble a memoir.[1] It includes some autobiographical elements; the protagonist shares the name, background, and career of the author.[1] Homeland Elegies has been referred to as autofiction.[2] Akhtar has spoken about wanting the effect of the novel to be like scrolling through social media: "It's essay. It's memoir. It's fiction. It just had to be seamless, in the way that a platform like Instagram is seamless. And one of the pivotal dimensions of that content is the staging and curation of the self."[3] He adds that crafting the book in the first person, and calling the narrator "Ayad Akhtar" allows him "to have a relationship to the reader that felt more immediate than fiction. But I only know how to write fiction ... I wouldn't have known how to write a memoir."[4]

The idea for writing Homeland Elegies came to Akhtar while he was in Rome, reading Giacomo Leopardi's Canti. The first poem "To Italy" inspired him to write a novel about America, that "seemed on the verge of splitting apart".[3] Homeland Elegies begins with "An Overture to America" and then is divided into eight sections, followed by a coda entitled "Free Speech". Akhtar modeled sections off of different Tolstoy novellas: "V. Riaz; or the Merchant of Death" off of Hadji Murad; "VI. Of Love and Death" off of The Kreutzer Sonata; and "VIII. Langford v. Reliant; or, How My Father's American Story Ends" off of The Death of Ivan Ilych.[3]

The book comments on the recent political and financial history of the United States[5] including the election of Donald Trump, the September 11 attacks, and America's debt-fueled economy.[6]

Reception

Critical reception

Dwight Garner, in his review for The New York Times, praised Homeland Elegies as "a beautiful novel about an American son and his immigrant father". Garner perceived "echoes" of The Great Gatsby in the novel, stating that it "circles, with pointed intellect, the possibilities and limitations of American life".[7] Rafia Zakaria, writing for the Boston Globe, compared the work favorably to the novels and memoir of Salman Rushdie.[8] Alexandra Schwartz, in her profile of Akhtar in The New Yorker, called the novel "a crescendo of grievance reminiscent of Allen Ginsberg's Howl ... [Akhtar] denounces the nation's recent sins and failures ... rails against the country's cult of greed, its prostitution of private life for public attention, its allegiance to devices ... to give his own account of the riven nation."[3] Ron Charles of The Washington Post lauded the book, calling it a "tour de force" and declared that he would not be surprised "if it wins [Akhtar] a second Pulitzer Prize".[9] Junot Diaz, reviewing the book for O Magazine, called Homeland Elegies "the book of the year".[10]

Based on a survey of 31 reviews from literary journalists, Literary Hub's Book Marks rated Homeland Elegies' critical response a "Rave".[11]

Honors

Homeland Elegies was named a top 10 book of 2020 by The New York Times, The Washington Post, Publishers Weekly, Entertainment Weekly, Shelf Awareness, and Time.[12][13][14][15][16][17]

O Magazine, Slate, Kirkus Reviews, NPR, The Economist, Library Journal, and the New York Public Library named Homeland Elegies as one of the best books of 2020.[18][19][20][21][22][23]

Barack Obama named Homeland Elegies one of his favorite books of 2020.[24]

The novel was a finalist for the 2021 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction.[25]

Homeland Elegies won the 2021 American Book Award[26] and the 2021 Wisconsin Library Association Literary Award.[27]

Television adaptation

FX is developing an eight-episode limited series of Homeland Elegies, adapted by Akhtar and Oren Moverman, who will direct all eight episodes. Kumail Nanjiani will star in the series.[28]

References

  1. 1 2 Butler, Isaac (7 December 2020). "Seeking the Truth About Trump's America by Blurring Fact and Fiction". Slate. Retrieved 11 January 2021.
  2. ↑ Elgrably, Jordan (10 November 2020). "Trump Derangement Syndrome, or How I Learned to Love America: On Ayad Akhtar's "Homeland Elegies"". Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved 11 January 2021.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Schwartz, Alexandra (11 September 2020). "An American Writer for an Age of Division". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2021-02-22.
  4. ↑ "Ayad Akhtar on a New Kind of Autofiction". Literary Hub. 2020-10-01. Retrieved 2021-02-22.
  5. ↑ Elgenaidi, Deena (17 September 2020). ""Homeland Elegies" Examines What It Means to Be Muslim American Post-9/11". Electric Literature. Retrieved 11 January 2021.
  6. ↑ Rebolini, Arianna (18 September 2020). "'Because I'm Muslim, I Must Be Writing About Muslims. I'm Trying To Write About This Country.' A Conversation With Ayad Akhtar". BuzzFeed News. Retrieved 11 January 2021.
  7. ↑ Garner, Dwight (14 September 2020). "With Wit and Anger, Ayad Akhtar Addresses What It Means to Be American". The New York Times. Retrieved 11 January 2021.
  8. ↑ Zakaria, Rafia (10 September 2020). "A glimpse of Rushdie's children in 'Homeland Elegies' - The Boston Globe". Boston Globe. Retrieved 11 January 2021.
  9. ↑ Charles, Ron. "Review | Ayad Akhtar's play 'Disgraced' won a Pulitzer Prize. Now 'Homeland Elegies' shows what that success cost him". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2021-02-22.
  10. ↑ Díaz, Junot (2020-09-01). "Ayad Akhtar's"Homeland Elegies" Is an Immigrant Saga Unlike Any Other". 'O Magazine. Retrieved 2021-02-22.
  11. ↑ "Book Marks reviews of Homeland Elegies by Ayad Akhtar". Book Marks. Retrieved 2021-02-22.
  12. ↑ "The 10 Best Books of 2020". The New York Times. 23 November 2020. Retrieved 11 January 2021.
  13. ↑ "The 10 Best Books of 2020". The Washington Post. November 19, 2020.
  14. ↑ "Best Books 2020: Publishers Weekly Publishers Weekly". PublishersWeekly.com. Retrieved 2021-02-22.
  15. ↑ "The 10 Best Fiction Books of 2020". Time. Retrieved 2021-02-22.
  16. ↑ "The 10 best books of 2020". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 2021-02-22.
  17. ↑ "Shelf Awareness for Readers for Tuesday, December 1, 2020". www.shelf-awareness.com. Retrieved 2021-02-22.
  18. ↑ Haber, Leigh; Hart, Michelle; Cain, Hamilton (2020-11-19). "These Are the Best Books of 2020, According to O, The Oprah Magazine". O Magazine. Retrieved 2021-02-22.
  19. ↑ Miller, Laura (10 December 2020). "The Best Books of 2020". Slate. Retrieved 11 January 2021.
  20. ↑ "Best of 2020". Kirkus Reviews. Retrieved 2021-02-22.
  21. ↑ "Best Books for Adults 2020". The New York Public Library. Retrieved 2021-02-22.
  22. ↑ "NPR's Best Books of 2020". apps.npr.org. Retrieved 2021-02-22.
  23. ↑ "Our books of the year". The Economist. 2020-12-03. ISSN 0013-0613. Retrieved 2021-02-22.
  24. ↑ Merry, Stephanie. "Barack Obama took a break from promoting his own book to highlight 17 of the year's best". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2021-02-22.
  25. ↑ "ALA Unveils 2021 Carnegie Medals Shortlist". American Libraries. Retrieved 11 January 2021.
  26. ↑ "Ayad Akhtar, Ben Ehrenreich among winners of American Book Awards". USA Today. Retrieved 2021-09-28.
  27. ↑ "2021 Literary Awards". www.wisconsinlibraries.org. Retrieved 2021-09-28.
  28. ↑ Andreeva, Nellie (2021-07-09). "Kumail Nanjiani To Headline & EP 'Homeland Elegies' Limited Series Adaptation In Works At FX". Deadline. Retrieved 2021-09-28.
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