Evan Osnos: Shadows of the American Dream
National Book Award–winning author and longtime New Yorker staff writer Evan Osnos examines what pursuing the American Dream means in an era of extreme economic inequality, where wealth and opportunity are increasingly concentrated among elites. Drawing on his book ‘The Haves and Have-Yachts’, Osnos offers a sharp, often darkly humorous portrait of billionaires and oligarchs, revealing both the allure and isolation of immense wealth. In conversation with Tracy Metz, Osnos explores how concentrated power influences workplaces, public life and opportunities for ordinary people worldwide.
Together with Evan Osnos Staff writer at The New Yorker Tahrim Ramdjan Senior reporter & opinion coordinator at Het ParoolAbout the speakers
Evan Osos is the author of Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China, Joe Biden: The Life, the Run, and What Matters Now, and Wildland: The Making of America’s Fury, works that collectively reflect his enduring engagement with power, ambition, and the forces that define our contemporary world.
Tahrim Ramdjan has written for Het Parool since 2019, where he serves as senior reporter and opinion coordinator. His investigative work has examined harassment and abuse in media and the arts, earning him nominations for De Loep and De Tegel, two of the Netherlands’ top journalism awards. In 2025, he published the essay collection Wat zullen de mensen zeggen?, a manifesto against pigeonholing. Alongside reporting, Ramdjan teaches journalism at the University of Amsterdam, serves on the board of VVOJ Start (Association of Investigative Journalists), and acts as a supervisor for the youth journalism platform Red Pers.
About the moderator
Tracy Metz is a journalist, author and podcaster who served as the director of the John Adams Institute from 2013 to 2025, where she moderated and curated conversations between American thinkers and European audiences on politics, culture, and society. Throughout her career, Metz has written extensively about urban life, housing policy, and the social consequences of economic and spatial inequality—subjects that intersect closely with Evan Osnos’s examination of wealth, power, and access in contemporary America.
