The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid

Description

“The Reluctant Fundamentalist” by Mohsin Hamid is an exciting book that really opens up a lot of space for discussion, bringing a wide range of themes: questions on identity, cultural clashes, and how global politics can influence personal life. It is not an easy novel to read; it is a very challenging piece of work. Post-9/11 tensions form the background against which this energetic American – Changez is made to confront his deep-seated identity crisis about being a Pakistani or an American.

Title and Author: The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid.

Genre/Category: Fiction, Political Fiction, Psychological Thriller.

Plot Summary:

The book takes the shape of a dramatic monologue: the protagonist Changez is recounting his life history to an anonymous American listener in a café in Lahore, Pakistan.
Changez is a brilliant and ambitious young Pakistani man who moves to the United States to go to Princeton University. He quickly gets a job at an elite valuation firm in New York; marking him as being among those to have finally achieved that elusive “American Dream.”
However, the location of the September 11 attacks on terrorist installations change Changez’s perception of America. Changez began to become more pessimistic about his life in America and against the system as well as the role that America played internationally. His crisis of identity becomes a point of concern as he continues to lose between his individual desires and his newfound sense of politics and cultural difference between the West and his fatherland.
In this regard, the story unfolds to be one of love with an American woman named Erica and parallels his emotional alienation and detachment.
The more critical Changez has become against the American empire and its influence on the world, the more spiritual and ideologically transformed he becomes; henceforth, he returns to Pakistan and gets himself tangled in anti-American feelings.