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Summary and Reviews of The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid

The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid

The Reluctant Fundamentalist

by Mohsin Hamid
  • BookBrowse Review:
  • Critics' Consensus (9):
  • Readers' Rating (2):
  • First Published:
  • Apr 3, 2007, 192 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Apr 2008, 192 pages
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About This Book

Book Summary

Changez is at the top of his class at Princeton, and 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. 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.

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 immigrant’s 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 Changez’s own identity is in seismic shift as well, unearthing allegiances more fundamental than money, power, and maybe even love.

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Reviews

BookBrowse Review

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It's likely that some who would appreciate this book have avoided reading it believing, from the title, that it offers an apologia for fundamentalism. This is not the case. In fact, it is difficult to imagine that any well-read, balanced reader could find anything offensive in its pages. The Reluctant Fundamentalist raises many questions but, happily, leaves the reader to answer almost all of them for his or herself.
This superbly written, gripping tale is a shoe-in for book clubs and all who enjoy being intellectually challenged by their reading matter...continued

Full Review (545 words)

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(Reviewed by BookBrowse Review Team).

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Beyond the Book



Mohsin Hamid, who now lives in London, grew up in Lahore, Pakistan, and attended Princeton and Harvard. Like Changez, he has also spent time in Chile and the Philippines but he assures the reader in the interview you can read at BookBrowse that, while he has inhabited the geography of Changez's world, he is not Changez.

His first novel, Moth Smoke, was a Betty Trask Award winner, PEN/ Hemingway Award finalist, and New York Times Notable Book of the Year. His writing has also ...

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Read-Alikes

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    The Association of Small Bombs is an expansive and deeply humane novel that is at once groundbreaking in its empathy, dazzling in its acuity, and ambitious in scope.

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