Synopses & Reviews
Now a major motion picture
Short-listed for the Man Booker Prize
New York Times bestseller
“Extreme times call for extreme reactions, extreme writing. Hamid has done something extraordinary with this novel.” —Washington Post
“One of those achingly assured novels that makes you happy to be a reader.” —Junot Diaz
At a café table in Lahore, a bearded Pakistani man converses with an uneasy American stranger. As dusk deepens to night, he begins the tale that has brought them to this fateful encounter . . .
Changez is living an immigrants dream of America. At the top of his class at Princeton, he is snapped up by an elite valuation firm. He thrives on the energy of New York, and his budding romance with elegant, beautiful Erica promises entry into Manhattan society at the same exalted level once occupied by his own family back in Lahore.
But in the wake of September 11, Changez finds his position in his adopted city suddenly overturned, and his relationship with Erica shifting. And Changezs own identity is in seismic shift as well, unearthing allegiances more fundamental than money, power, and maybe even love.
“Brief, charming, and quietly furious . . . a resounding success.” —Village Voice
A Washington Post and San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year
A New York Times Notable Book
Review
PRAISE FOR THE RELUCTANT FUNDAMENTALISTElegant and chilling . . . his tale [has] an Arabian Nightsstyle urgency: the end of the story may mean the death of the teller.”The New York Times Book Review
Slender, smart, and subversive.”Entertainment Weekly
Changezs voice is extraordinary. Cultivated, restrained, yet also barbed and passionate, it evokes the power of butler Stevens in Kazuo Ishiguros The Remains of the Day.”The Seattle Times
A searing and powerful account of a Pakistani in New York after 9/11.”Mira Nair, director of The Namesake
Review
PRAISE FOR MOTH SMOKE
"A rare glimpse into modern-day Pakistan . . . The voices that emerge are sarcastic and sad, a lively lament . . . reminiscent of V. S. Naipaul and Salman Rushdie." CHICAGO TRIBUNE
"Stunning . . . [Hamid] has created a hip page-turner about the mysterious country that both created the sophisticated Benazir Bhutto and hanged her father." LOS ANGELES TIMES
Review
"Far from seeming bothered by the literariness of literature, Mohsin Hamid appears to savor it. Ambiguity starts out as the delicate organizing principle of his novel The Reluctant Fundamentalist. By the end of the book it has turned into the disturbing payoff."
Review
"A brilliant book. With spooky restraint and masterful control, Hamid unpicks the underpinnings of the most recent episode of distrust between East and West. But this book does not merely excel in capturing a developing bitterness. The narrative is balanced by a love as powerful as the sinister forces gathering, even when it recedes into a phantom of hope. It is this balance, and the constant negotiation of the political with the personal, that creates a nuanced and complex portrait of a reluctant fundamentalist."
Review
"A searing and powerful account of a Pakistani in New York after 9/11."
Review
"I read Mohsin Hamid's
The Reluctant Fundamentalist with increasing admiration. It is beautifully written--what a joy it is to find such intelligent prose, such clarity of thought and exposition--and superbly constructed. The author has managed to tighten the screw of suspense almost without our being aware it is happening, and the result is a tale of enormous tension. I read a lot of thrillers--or rather I start reading a lot of thrillers, and put most of them down--but this is more exciting than any thriller I've read for a long time, as well as being a subtle and elegant analysis of the state of our world today. I was enormously impressed."
Review
"It's a testament to author Mohsin Hamid's skill that Changez, despite this cold-blooded admission, remains a partly sympathetic character ... Everything we know comes to us by his voice, by turns emotionally raw, teasingly ambiguous, fawning and tinged with menace. We read on to see what he will reveal, increasingly certain that he will also conceal."
Review
"... elegant and chilling ..."
Review
" ... taut and accomplished ..."
Review
"The author develops Changez's character so convincingly that by mid-book, readers understand Changez's anger, even if they don't agree with it ... brilliantly written and well worth a read."
Review
"Brief, charming, and quietly furious … Hamid … is an artist of fantastic cunning, and his second novel (following the rightly praised Moth Smoke) demonstrates … that it is possible to simultaneously address the byzantine monstrosity of contemporary existence and care about the destiny of one's characters ... [A] resounding success."
Review
"Extreme times call for extreme reactions, extreme writing. Hamid has done something extraordinary with this novel, and for those who want a different voice, a different view of the aftermath of 9/11, The Reluctant Fundamentalist is well worth reading."
Synopsis
Mohsin Hamid's best-selling novel is now a major motion picture directed by Mira Nair (Monsoon Wedding, The Namesake) and starring Riz Ahmed, Kate Hudson, Kiefer Sutherland, and Liev Schreiber
Synopsis
Now a major motion picture
Short-listed for the Man Booker Prize
A New York Times bestseller
A Washington Post and San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year
A New York Times Notable Book
"Extreme times call for extreme reactions, extreme writing. Hamid has done something extraordinary with this novel."--Washington Post
"One of those achingly assured novels that makes you happy to be a reader."--Junot Diaz
"Brief, charming, and quietly furious . . . a resounding success."--Village Voice
At a cafe table in Lahore, a bearded Pakistani man converses with an uneasy American stranger. As dusk deepens to night, he begins the tale that has brought them to this fateful encounter . . .
Changez is living an immigrant's dream of America. At the top of his class at Princeton, he is snapped up by an elite valuation firm. He thrives on the energy of New York, and his budding romance with elegant, beautiful Erica promises entry into Manhattan society at the same exalted level once occupied by his own family back in Lahore. But in the wake of September 11, Changez finds his position in his adopted city suddenly overturned, and his relationship with Erica shifting. And Changez's own identity is in seismic shift as well, unearthing allegiances more fundamental than money, power, and maybe even love.
Synopsis
Short-listed for the Man Booker Prize
A New York Times bestseller
A Washington Post and San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year
A New York Times Notable Book
"Extreme times call for extreme reactions, extreme writing. Hamid has done something extraordinary with this novel."--Washington Post
At a caf table in Lahore, a bearded Pakistani man converses with an uneasy American stranger. As dusk deepens to night, he begins the tale that has brought them to this fateful encounter . . .
Changez is living an immigrant's dream of America. At the top of his class at Princeton, he is snapped up by an elite valuation firm. He thrives on the energy of New York, and his budding romance with elegant, beautiful Erica promises entry into Manhattan society at the same exalted level once occupied by his own family back in Lahore. But in the wake of September 11, Changez finds his position in his adopted city suddenly overturned, and his relationship with Erica shifting. And Changez's own identity is in seismic shift as well, unearthing allegiances more fundamental than money, power, and maybe even love.
Synopsis
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
SHORT-LISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE
OVER ONE MILLION COPIES SOLD WORLDWIDE The elegant and compelling novel about a Pakistani man's abandonment of his high-flying life in New York--an extraordinary portrait of a divided and yet ultimately indivisible world in America post-9/11.
At a caf table in Lahore, a bearded Pakistani man converses with an uneasy American stranger. He begins to tell the story of a man named Changez, who is living an immigrant's dream of America. At the top of his class at Princeton, he is snapped up by an elite valuation firm. He thrives on the energy of New York, and his budding romance with elegant, beautiful Erica promises entry into Manhattan society at the same exalted level once occupied by his own family back in Lahore. But in the wake of September 11, Changez finds his position in his adopted city suddenly overturned, and his relationship with Erica shifting. And Changez's own identity is in seismic shift as well, unearthing allegiances more fundamental than money, power, and maybe even love.
Synopsis
At a café table in Lahore, a bearded Pakistani man converses with an uneasy American stranger. As dusk deepens to night, he begins the tale that has brought them to this fateful meeting . . .
Changez is living an immigrants dream of America. At the top of his class at Princeton, he is snapped up by the elite "valuation" firm of Underwood Samson. He thrives on the energy of New York, and his infatuation with elegant, beautiful Erica promises entry into Manhattan society at the same exalted level once occupied by his own family back in Lahore.
But in the wake of September 11, Changez finds his position in his adopted city suddenly overturned, and his budding relationship with Erica eclipsed by the reawakened ghosts of her past. And Changezs own identity is in seismic shift as well, unearthing allegiances more fundamental than money, power, and maybe even love.
Synopsis
Mark Helprin's acclaimed novel is now a major motion picture starring Colin Farrell, Jessica Brown Findlay, Jennifer Connelly, William Hurt, Eva Marie Saint, and Russell Crowe. Written and directed by Oscar-winning screenwriter Akiva Goldsman (A Beautiful Mind), in theatres February 14, 2014.
Synopsis
Now a major motion picture New York Times bestseller "Utterly extraordinary . . . A piercing sense of the beautiful arising from narrative and emotional fantasy is everywhere alive in the novel . . . Not for some time have I read a work as funny, thoughtful, passionate or large-souled . . . I find myself nervous, to a degree I dont recall in my past as a reviewer, about failing the work, inadequately displaying its brilliance." - Benjamin DeMott, New York Times Book Review Mark Helprins masterpiece will transport you to New York of the Belle Epoque, to a city clarified by a siege of unprecedented snows. One winter night, Peter Lake - master mechanic and second-storey man - attempts to rob a fortress-like mansion on the Upper West Side. Though he thinks it is empty, the daughter of the house is home. Thus begins the affair between a middle-aged Irish burglar and Beverly Penn, a young girl dying of consumption. It is a love so powerful that Peter Lake, a simple and uneducated man, will be driven to stop time and bring back the dead. His great struggle is one of the most beautiful and extraordinary stories of American literature. "He creates tableaux of such beauty and clarity that the inner eye is stunned." - Publishers Weekly "This novel stretches the boundaries of contemporary literature. It is a gifted writers love affair with the language." - Newsday
About the Author
MOHSIN HAMID's first novel, Moth Smoke, was a Betty Trask Award winner, PEN/ Hemingway Award finalist, and New York Times Notable Book of the Year. His second, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, a bestseller in the United States and abroad, was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize. His most recent novel is How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia. Hamid's writing has also appeared in Time, the New York Times, and other publications. He lives in Lahore, Pakistan.