‘Homeland Elegies’ weaves together a Muslim family and politics
When Ayad Akhtar won a Pulitzer in 2013 for his play “Disgraced” – in which a successful Muslim-American lawyer admits to feeling “an unexpected blush of pride” on seeing the twin towers fall – he became a flashpoint for controversies around Islam in the long wake of 9/11. Some theatergoers were suspicious that the phrase mirrored Akhtar’s own sentiments; Muslims felt betrayed by what they saw as reinforcing Western stereotypes, which foreshadowed then-candidate Donald Trump’s false claim of Muslims in Jersey City
