Novelist Rumaan Alam - on Wealth, Power, and Entitlement

How To Academy Podcast

Barrack and Michele Obama loved Rumaan Alam's apocalyptic third novel, Leave the World Behind, so much they helped turn it into a wildly successful Netflix movie. That novel anticipated and captured the feel of life in the COVID pandemic with uncanny accuracy, and Rumaan's new book is no less attuned to the way we live now.

Entitlement is the story of Brooke, a young, ambitious Black New Yorker who finds herself in the employ of ageing billionaire-philanthropist Asher Jaffee - with unpredictable and profound consequences. Does money inevitably corrupt everyone who comes within its orbit? Is philanthropy just self-interested PR by the super-rich or a genuine force for good? How far would you go to fix your life, climb the ladder, and ascend to the upper echelons of the establishment? Rumaan joined us on the podcast to dissect all of these questions - without offering any easy answers.

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