Mohsin Hamid is a famous and critically acclaimed writer from Pakistan. His Prominent Work includes The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Exit West, and Moth Smoke. Born in Lahore, Mohsin Hamid spent part of his life in Lahore, London, and New York. Mohsin Hamid is 49 years old and he has done a lot so far in his career.
Mohsin Hamid has written 4 books and various Essays. His work has been translated into 40 languages and his work has been listed for many international bestsellers lists. His Famous Novel “The Reluctant Fundamentalist” has been adapted by Hollywood for a movie with the same name. Apart from his books, his Essays for Maleeha Lodhi’s Book “Pakistan beyond the crisis state” are a great treat for readers.
Distinguished author Mohsin Hamid
Mohsin Hamid Books includes The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Moth Smoke, Exit West and How to get filthy rich in Rising Asia. All of his books are well received by the readers and critics but the amount of love and popularity gained by THE RELUCTANT FUNDAMENTALIST is exceptional.
#1: THE RELUCTANT FUNDAMENTALIST:
The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
The Reluctant Fundamentalist is a book everyone should read. Written in the backdrop of the 9/11 Twin Tower incident, Hamid picked up a great story of Changaiz, A bearded young man from Lahore who once lived in a New Yorker Dream. Changez is a Princeton Graduate, worked at an Evaluation Firm, intimately in love with Erica suddenly turned out to be a stranger in New York City. After 9/11 how the world reacted in general and how American Society evolved, in particular, is the main theme of the story.
The Reluctant Fundamentalist is a New York Times and Washington Post bestseller and shortlisted for Man Booker Prize Award.
Here are some of my personal favorite excerpts :
“Time only moves in one direction. Remember that. Things always change.”
“It seems an obvious thing to say, but you should not imagine that we Pakistanis are all potential terrorists, just as w
“Four thousand years ago, we, the people of the Indus River basin, had cities that were laid out on grids and boasted underground sewers, while the ancestors of those who would invade and colonize America were illiterate barbarians.”e should not imagine that you Americans are all undercover assassins.”
“EXCUSE ME, SIR, but may I be of assistance? Ah, I see I have alarmed you. Do not be frightened by my beard: I am a lover of America. I noticed that you were looking for something; more than looking, in fact you seemed to be on a mission, and since I am both a native of this city and a speaker of your language, I thought I might offer you my services.”
“For we were not always burdened by debt, dependent on foreign aid and handouts; in the stories we tell of ourselves we were not the crazed and destitute radicals you see on your television channels but rather saints and poets and — yes — conquering kings. We built the Royal Mosque and the Shalimar Gardens in this city, and we built the Lahore Fort with its mighty walls and wide ramp for our battle-elephants. And we did these things when your country was still a collection of thirteen small colonies, gnawing away at the edge of a continent.”
“When my turn came, I said I hoped one day to be the dictator of an Islamic republic with nuclear capability; the others appeared shocked, and I was forced to explain that I had been joking.”
#2: Exit West
Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
The Story of Nadia and Saeed started amid a Civil War, they met and had an affair in the middle of bombs and bullets. After having their love story developed in the city, they started to listen to whispers about doors. Both of them left their relatives, lives, homes, and friends behind and finds doors to step through… which finally changed everything including love between them. Exit West is a heart-wrenching story of love, courage, uncertainty, and much more.
Exit West is New York Times best seller, Winner of L.A Times book prize and Finalist for the Booker Prize.
Here are some of my personal favorite excerpts :
“We are all migrants through time.”
“To love is to enter into the inevitability of one day not being able to protect what is most valuable to you.”
“when we migrate, we murder from our lives those we leave behind.”
“In this group, everyone was foreign, and so, in a sense, no one was.”
“It has been said that depression is a failure to imagine a plausible desirable future for oneself, and, not just in Marin, but in the whole region, in the Bay Area, and in many other places too, places both near and far, the apocalypse appeared to have arrived and yet it was not apocalyptic, which is to say that while the changes were jarring they were not the end, and life went on, and people found things to do and ways to be and people to be with, and plausible desirable futures began to emerge, unimaginable previously, but not unimaginable now, and the result was something not unlike relief.”
#3: Moth Smoke
Moth Smoke
Moth Smoke is Mohsin Hamid’s First Novel and that was definitely compelled everyone to believe that he is a supremely talented and gifted author of the times to come. Moth Smoke is a fast-paced and vivid piece of writing about contemporary Pakistan, its dynamics, and its differences and complexities. It is a piece to believe that the writer has deep knowledge about the country of his birth and brought up. South Asia and Pakistan are complex and vibrant than how the West perceives them.
Moth Smoke was shortlisted for the Men Booker Prize.
Here are some of my personal favorite excerpts :
“My cell is full of shadows. Hanging naked from a wire in the hall outside, a bulb casts light cut by rusted bars into thin strips that snake along the concrete floor and up the back wall. People like stains dissolve into the grayness.”
“I commit her to memory. When I’m alone, I feel a strange yearning, the hunger of a man fasting not because he believes but because he’s ashamed. Not the cleansing hunger of the devout, but the feverish hunger of the hypocrite. I let her go every evening only because there’s nothing I can do to stop her.”
“And with a last stardrop, a last circle, I arrive, and she’s there, chemical wonder in her eyes.”
“What else is belief but direction?”
“I’m interested in things women do that aren’t spoken about. Manto’s stories let me breathe. They make me feel like less of a monster.”
“If differences can be hidden, perhaps they aren’t differences at all.”
“The gun of the father is always the undoing of the son.”
Happy Reading 🙂
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By: Syed Umaer Anwer
The Writer is a CSS Qualifier but not allocated in any service group. He is an Agriculture graduate and Banker (of course) who has a grip on international relations, governance, and Public policy studies. Follow on Instagram @omayrgillany
