Boswell Book Company and Milwaukee Rep present an evening with Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright and acclaimed novelist Ayad Akhtar as part of the national tour of his new visionary novel, The Radiance. For this event, Ayad will be in conversation with Wisconsin essayist Barrett Swanson.
The Radiance is a Time Magazine Most Anticipated Book of 2026, and the New York Times named it one of the “Novels Everyone Will Be Talking About in 2026.” Abraham Verghese, author of The Covenant of Water, says: “The Radiance is, simply put, a work of genius. Through unforgettable characters, Akhtar explores the nature of memory and of the soul, while the unfolding tale builds tension and anticipation like a whodunit. Hard to put down and so original it will linger with me for a long time.”
Price: Tickets are $40* per person and include a signed copy of The Radiance. *Price excludes tax.
Presented with
Ayad Akhtar
Barrett Swanson
More about the Novel
A mysterious accident along a country road sparks an awakening and an investigation in this daring novel of spiritual transformation in an age of fracture. Moving between rural America and Europe, Islam and Christianity, the intimate and the metaphysical, Akhtar’s The Radiance is of our American moment and beyond it, asking not only what has broken, but what radiance remains?
About Ayad Akhtar
Ayad Akhtar has been awarded 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. Ayad is author of the novels American Dervish and Homeland Elegies, one of the New York Times 10 Best Books of 2020, as well as plays including McNeal, Junk, and Disgraced. He is a member of Milwaukee Rep’s Board of Trustees and was raised in Brookfield.
Essayist Barrett Swanson
Barrett Swanson is a contributing editor at Harper’s Magazine. He was the recipient of a 2015 Pushcart Prize, and his short fiction and essays have been distinguished as notable in Best American Short Stories (2019), Best American Nonrequired Reading (2014), Best American Essays (2014, 2015, 2017, 2019, 2020 and 2021) and Best American Sports Writing (2017). His work has appeared in many places, including Harper’s, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and The New York Times Magazine.