I don't have an ideal reader. I'm trying to reach something simple and, I believe, universal, in every single person.
Ayad AkhtarI don't feel that as an artist my job is to offer PR propaganda, whether for the good or for the bad.
Ayad AkhtarI've always felt a connection to kids who go to church. I think I'm fundamentally a religiously oriented and religiously minded person. It's very easy for me to communicate with people who have that same grounding, that same vocabulary or modality of thinking and expressing themselves.
Ayad AkhtarI think of myself as a narrative artist. I don't think of myself as a novelist or screenwriter or playwright. All of those modalities of processing and experiencing narrative are obviously very different, and I'm not sure that I prefer any one to the other. I think the novel gives you the opportunity to have a kind of interiority that you can't have in the theater, which is pure exteriority.
Ayad Akhtar