The Reluctant Fundamentalist

The Reluctant Fundamentalist

Summary

The internationally bestselling, Man Booker-shortlisted portrait of a man caught between conflicting identities and betrayed by the world he has embraced - from the author of Exit West

Adapted as a major film starring Kate Hudson and Kiefer Sutherland

'Masterful . . . A poignant love story and a thriller that subtly ratchets up the nerve-jangling tension towards an explosive ending' Metro

'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 he 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 . . .

Challenging, mysterious and thrillingly tense, Mohsin Hamid's masterly The Reluctant Fundamentalist is a vital read teeming with questions and ideas about some of the most pressing issues of today's globalised, fractured world.

Reviews

  • 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

About the author

Mohsin Hamid

MOHSIN HAMID writes regularly for The New York Times, the Guardian and the New York Review of Books, and is the author of Exit West, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Moth Smoke, How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia and Discontent and its Civilizations. Born and mostly raised in Lahore, he has since lived between Lahore, London and New York.
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