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  • Published: 14 August 2017
  • ISBN: 9780241981382
  • Imprint: Penguin General UK
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 224
  • RRP: $22.99

The Reluctant Fundamentalist




Mohsin Hamid's provocative, elegant and gripping novel, available as a Penguin Essential for the first time

'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 . . . '

So speaks the mysterious stranger at a Lahore cafe as dusk settles. Invited to join him for tea, you learn his name and what led this speaker of immaculate English to seek you out. For her is more worldy than you might expect; better travelled and better educated. He knows the West better than you do. And as he tells you his story, of how he embraced the Western dream -- and a Western woman -- and how both betrayed him, so the night darkens. Then the true reason for your meeting becomes abundantly clear . . .

  • Published: 14 August 2017
  • ISBN: 9780241981382
  • Imprint: Penguin General UK
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 224
  • RRP: $22.99

About the author

Mohsin Hamid

Mohsin Hamid grew up in Lahore, attended Princeton University and Harvard Law School and worked for several years as a management consultant in New York. His first novel, Moth Smoke, was published in ten languages, won a Betty Trask Award, and was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award. His essays and journalism have appeared in Time, the New York Times and the Guardian, among others. His latest novel is The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2007) published by Penguin. Mohsin Hamid currently lives, works and writes in London.

http://www.mohsinhamid.com

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Praise for The Reluctant Fundamentalist

Gripping... remains taut until the final pages...an elegant and sharp indictment of the clouds of suspicion that now shroud our world

Observer

A quietly told, cleverly constructed fable of infatuation and disenchantment with America, set on the treacherous faultlines of current east/west relations, and finely tuned to the ironies of mutual - but especially American - prejudice and misrepresentation...increasingly tense...genuinely provocative...intelligent, highly engaging

Guardian

Elegant, provocative . . . beautifully measured prose . . . a delicate meditation on the nature of perception and prejudice

Daily Mail

Masterful . . . A multi-layered and thoroughly gripping book, which works as a poignant love story, a powerful dissection of how US imperialist machinations have turned so many people against the world's superpower - and as a thriller that subtly ratchets up the nerve-jangling tension towards an explosive ending

Metro

The Reluctant Fundamentalist is an important book

Evening Standard

A fantastic piece of work, superbly considered and controlled, with a lovely stillness and wisdom at its heart

The Times

Beautifully written

Philip Pullman

A profoundly contemporary story about civil wars, unstable countries and refugees pouring to the cities of the West... beautifully written, with the ghost of Camus hovering at the edge of the frame

New Statesman