The Radiance: Ayad Akhtar with Karen Russell
Tue, Oct 06
|Sydney Goldstein Theater
“Simply put, a work of genius.” —Abraham Verghese, author of The Covenant of Water
Time & Location
Oct 06, 2026, 7:30 PM – 9:00 PM
Sydney Goldstein Theater, 275 Hayes St, San Francisco, CA 94102, USA
About The Event
Co-presented with City Arts & Lectures
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).
When a hit-and-run shatters more than his body, a writer is caught between revelation and madness as an uncanny pull toward a brilliant campus colleague ensnares him in 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. In conversation with Karen Russell.
$54, a limited number of tickets include a signed copy of The Radiance.