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Published in 2007 in these languages. Became an international bestseller with over a million copies in print. Was adapted for the cinema.

Awards

Won the Ambassador Book Award, Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, Asian American Literary Award, Premio Speciale Dal Testo Allo Schermo, and South Bank Show Award for Literature.

Was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, James Tait Black Memorial Prize, Commonwealth Writers Prize, Arts Council England Decibel Award, Australia-Asia Literary Award, and Index on Censorship T R Fyvel Award.

Was named a Book of the Decade by the Guardian and a Notable Book of the Year by the New York Times.

Reviews

'An artist of fantastic cunning... demonstrates what certain trumped-up laureates of post-modernity seem incapable of grasping: that it is possible to simultaneously address the byzantine monstrosity of contemporary existence and care about the destiny of one's characters... [a] resounding success... not unworthy of Nabokov.' -- The Village Voice (full review)

'Taut and accomplished... Changez's story, which seems to gush from him like blood from a wound, traces the self's shifting sense of itself against the rumblings of a rudely shaken world... Dostoyevskian.' -- San Francisco Chronicle (full review)

'Changez's voice is extraordinary. Cultivated, restrained, yet also barbed and passionate, it evokes the power of butler Stevens in Kazuo Ishiguro's Remains of the Day... brilliantly written and well worth a read.' -- The Seattle Times (full review)

'Some books are acts of courage... Extreme times call for extreme reactions, extreme writing. Hamid has done something extraordinary with this novel.' -- The Washington Post (full review)

'Fascinating, haunting... what makes this novel such an absorbing read is the unsettling dialogue it creates within the reader. Its minimalism, which leaves so much room for argument, also renders our complicity, forcing us to actively talk back, unable to retreat to our national borders with their complacent certainties.' -- The Brooklyn Rail (full review)

'Far from seeming bothered by the literariness of literature, Mohsin Hamid appears to savor it. Ambiguity starts out as the delicate organizing principle of his novel The Reluctant Fundamentalist. By the end of the book it has turned into the disturbing payoff... Maybe we the readers are the ones who jump to conclusions; maybe the book is intended as a Rorschach to reflect back our unconscious assumptions. In our not knowing lies the novel's suspense.' -- The New York Review of Books (full review)

'Elegant and chilling... A less sophisticated author might have told a one-note story in which an immigrant's experiences of discrimination and ignorance cause his alienation. But Hamid's novel... is distinguished by its portrayal of Changez's class aspirations and inner struggle.' -- The New York Times

'Builds with masterfully controlled irony and suspense... A superb cautionary tale, and a grim reminder of the continuing cost of ethnic profiling, miscommunication and confrontation.' -- Kirkus Reviews, starred review (full review)

'This author’s second novel succeeds so well... [Its] firm, steady, even beautiful voice proclaims the completeness of the soul when personal and global issues are conjoined.' -- Booklist, starred review (full review)

'An easy grace, an unputdownable narrative... an excellent achievement... The various ramifications of this fictional interaction are healthy for Pakistani literature as well as Pakistani identity... Hamid has done something which many Pakistani writers, especially those who write in Urdu, should learn: the art of understatement.' -- The News (Pakistan) (full review)

'Hamid is unobtrusively, but constantly, addressing the reader, hinting at how to read his novel; how not to be manipulated and led... There's an almost delightful allegorical symmetry to the flow of events, as well as a sensuousness and finish that might belong to some other form of art: music, perhaps... The result is a cool equipoise that is not possible in 'real life'... but no less moving or true for having achieved a sort of perfection.' -- The London Review of Books (full review)

'Mohsin Hamid's masterful short novel... works as a poignant love story, a powerful dissection of [what has] turned so many people against the world's superpower, and as a thriller that subtly ratchets up the nerve-jangling tension towards an explosive ending.' -- Metro, book of the week (full review)

'An impressively intelligent thriller... a microcosm of the cankerous suspicion between East and West. But, more than that, it is a piece of technically accomplished writing that entertains at the same time as it makes you think.' -- The Daily Telegraph (full review)

'Clever and elegant... unfinished love adds depth, and an unsuspected measure of tenderness, to his tense, polished second novel.' -- The Independent (full review)

'Succeeds in wrapping an exploration of the straining relationship between East and West in a gripping yarn... an elegant and sharp indictment of the clouds of suspicion that now shroud our world.' -- The Observer (full review)

'Picks off his ideological targets with the accuracy of a sniper... prods the intellect, quickens the pulse and captures the imagination.' -- The Sunday Times (full review)

'This elegant, provocative novel... in beautifully measured prose... offers a delicate meditation on the nature of perception and prejudice.' -- Daily Mail (full review)

'A fantastic piece of work, superbly considered and controlled, with a lovely stillness and wisdom at its heart.' -- The Times

'A quietly told, cleverly constructed fable of infatuation and disenchantment with America... an intelligent, highly engaging piece of work.' -- The Guardian

'The tone is spot-on... a thoughtful and sophisticated novel that has the courage to wear its poltitical conviction on its sleeve.' -- Time Out London

'In his beautifully accomplished little volume, Hamid... is sophisticated with symbols, and the relationship between Changez and Erica is especially affecting, in great part because of what it says about missed opportunities.' -- The Globe and Mail (full review)

'Taut and absolutely absorbing... makes it impossible for the reader to know for certain whether danger actually lurks or whether the reader's perceived sense of dread and underlying malice is nothing more than the product of an overactive, media-fed imagination.' -- Toronto Star (full review)

'The most engaging new novel I've read since Never Let Me Go, and the most unsettling... I can't imagine how anyone who enjoys literature could fail to enjoy this book.' -- Blogcritics Magazine (full review)

'A deeply provocative, excellent addition to the burgeoning sub-genre of September 11 novels. But it would be an understatement to call it merely that. Here is a novel rich in irony and intelligence.' -- Sydney Morning Herald (full review)

'9/11... most novels have only scratched the surface... The Reluctant Fundamentalist is a glorious exception to this rule. Its success depends not just on sympathy and thought, but also on this young novelist’s deftness.' -- Outlook India (full review)

'To engage the reader for 184 pages with one man talking non-stop to another — narrating, teasing, theorising, whining, lecturing — is a truly impressive feat. Hamid pulls it off grandly in a style reminiscent of the Russian masters.' -- Hindustan Times (full review)

'Beautifully written and superbly constructed. It is more exciting than any thriller I've read for a long time, as well as being a subtle and elegant analysis of the state of our world today.' -- Philip Pullman

'A brilliant book. With spooky restraint and masterful control, Hamid unpicks the underpinnings of the most recent episode of distrust between East and West. The narrative is balanced by a love as powerful as the sinister forces gathering, even when it recedes into a phantom of hope.' -- Kiran Desai