The Radiance

A NEW YORK TIMES NOVEL EVERYONE WILL BE TALKING ABOUT IN 2026 • A TIME MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2026

‘Simply put, a work of genius.’ Abraham Verghese, author of The Covenant of Water

A mysterious accident along a country road sparks an awakening and an investigation in this electrifying novel from Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright Ayad Akhtar

A writer escapes the city to a rural town, but when a near-fatal hit-and-run shatters more than his body, he is plunged into a profound and unsettling spiritual awakening he can’t distinguish from madness. Asked to teach a university seminar, he grapples with the tensions between his fractious students, the exposure of a dark family secret, and the motive behind his mysterious accident. Finding himself caught between revelation and insanity, an uncanny pull toward a brilliant colleague ensnares him in a scandal that threatens to destroy them both…

Praise for Ayad Akhtar

The Radiance

‘Electric and unforgettable. Only Akhtar could navigate territory this fraught – power, obsession, violation, and desire – and emerge with a book this urgent and alive.’ Tara Westover, author of Educated

‘Akhtar explores the nature of memory and of the soul, while the unfolding tale builds tension like a whodunit. The Radiance is hard to put down and so original it will linger with me for a long time.’ Abraham Verghese, author of The Covenant of Water

‘The Radiance is as thrilling as it is illuminating. It quickened my pulse, activated my senses, awakened my mind and stirred my soul. A wondrous, transcendent reading experience’ Charles Yu, author of Interior Chinatown

‘The Radiance is a fantastic surprise, a novel made of oppositions: painfully intimate, culturally wide-angled, vulnerable, shrewd, compassionate, ruthless, tragic, and, well, radiant… A unique and extraordinary reading experience’ Mary Gaitskill, author of The Devil’s Treasure

Homeland Elegies

‘Perhaps the best American novel I have read in several years’ Richard Flanagan, author of The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Question 7