The Reluctant Fundamentalist

SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2007 '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...' Take a seat opposite a stranger. Linger with him as dusk falls over Lahore. He wants to tell you his story. This stranger is well travelled and well educated. He speaks immaculate English and knows the West better than you do. And as the night darkens around you both, he will tell you how he embraced the Western dream - and a Western woman - and how both betrayed him. Because there's no such thing as coincidence, and this man is here on this night, at this café table, for a reason. Highly nuanced and thrillingly tense, Mohsin Hamid's masterly The Reluctant Fundamentalist teems with urgent questions, forcing each of us to face the complex human realities of a globalized, fractured world.