A blistering novel about a writers creative response to the daily onslaught of fake news, memory, and the ways in which truth gives over to fiction

An absorbing portrait of an inspired artist in the midst of our maddening cultural moment Ayad Akhtar, author ofHomeland Elegies
When Satya, a professor and author, attends a prestigious artists’ retreat to write, he finds the pressures of the outside world wont let up: the president rages online; a dangerous virus envelops the globe; and the twenty-four-hour news cycle throws fuel on every fire. For most of the retreat fellows, such stories are unbearable distractions, but for Satya, who sees them play out in both America and his native India, these Orwellian interruptions begin to crystallize into an idea for his new novel,Enemies of the People, about the lies we tell ourselves and one another. Satya scours his life for instances in which truth bends toward the imagined and misinformation is mistaken as fact.

Mixing Satyas experiencesas a father, husband, and American immigrantwith newspaper clippings, the presidents tweets, and observations on famous works of art,A Time Outside This Timecaptures a feverish political moment with intelligence, beauty, and an eye for the uncanny. It is a brilliant interrogation on life in a post-truth era and an attempt to imagine a time outside this one.