Mohsin Hamid’s
Novel hits No 1 Spot on Bestseller List
By Khalid Hasan
Washington,
DC: Pakistani novelist Mohsin Hamid’s new novel, his
second, has hit the No 1 spot on the Barnes & Noble
bestseller list. This, according to the New York Times,
happened “virtually the moment it was published in
this country.”
In an interview with the newspaper, Hamid, who comes from
Lahore but lives in London, said that he may now be able
to quit his job as a consultant with a branding firm in
London. Asked if it is fair to describe the novel as a Muslim’s
critique of American values, he replied, “That’s
oversimplifying. The novel is a love song to America as
much as it is a critique.”
Told by the interviewer that he did not find it “so
loving” as it takes place on a single evening at a
cafe in Lahore, as a charming, well-educated Pakistani in
his 20s recounts his life story to an unnamed American stranger,
who seems suspicious of him, Hamid replied, “The American
is acting as if the Pakistani man is a Muslim fundamentalist
because of how he looks - he has a beard.” The author
in real life has a beard.
Told that the Pakistani narrator of the story also brings
certain fears and preconceptions to their conversation and
in an act of reverse ethnic profiling, he suspects the American
to be an undercover agent who might arrest him, the author
replied, “Yes. But he could be just as freaked out
as the rest of us are in this world when we see an American
with that kind of build and imagine he is a CIA agent. The
novel is not supposed to have a correct answer. It’s
a mirror. It really is just a conversation, and different
people will read it in different ways.”
Asked by the interviewer if he, an American, could also
be a CIA agent as their conversation, as in the novel, was
taking place between an American listener and a Pakistani
man with a beard, Hamid answered, “If you had short
hair and a bulge in your jacket, I might assume you were.”
When told that it was “unsettling” to learn
that Hamid’s protagonist felt a rush of genuine pleasure
when the World Trade Towers were attacked, the author replied,
“Some part of him has a desire to see America harmed.
In much of the world, there is resentment toward America,
and the notion that the superpower could be humiliated or
humbled or damaged in this way is something that gives satisfaction.”
Asked if that was how he felt when the Twin Towers were
attacked, Hamid replied, “No. I was devastated. A
wall had suddenly come up between my American and Muslim
worlds. The novel is my attempt to reconnect those divided
worlds.”
When reminded that much like the narrator in ‘The
Reluctant Fundamentalist,’ Mohsin Hamid grew up in
and was educated at Princeton, he replied, “I was
one of two or three Pakistanis in the class of ’93,
and I didn’t feel homesick for a second. I took two
writing workshops with, and I wrote the first draft of my
first novel in a long-fiction workshop with, both of whom
encouraged me.” He said in answer to another question
that from Princeton, he had gone to the Harvard Law School
but decided that he did not want to be a lawyer because
“it bored the pants off of me”.
Reminded that the only one who speaks in the novel is the
Pakistani, while the American is silenced, Hamid answered,
“For me, in the world of media, particularly the American
media, it’s almost always the other way around.”
When told that no one is silencing him as he goes on a book
tour across America and his book has already sold 100,00
copies, the author replied, “But there are not many
of us from the Muslim world who are getting heard over here.
And the ones who are mostly seem to be speaking in grainy
videos from caves.” (Courtesy Daily Times)
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