Mohsin Hamid
Fall 2012
“Constructing Fictions: Prose, Politics, and Pakistan”
Featuring Pakistani author Mohsin Hamid
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Constructing Fictions: Prose, Politics, and Pakistan
Over 70 students, staff, faculty, and community members attended Mr. Hamid's talk, the seventh lecture in the Brandeis Soli Sorabjee Lecture Series. Mr. Hamid shared insights from his books, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, and forthcoming How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia. Throughout the lecture, Mr. Hamid wove a narrative about the space that novels provide for readers to use their imagination, the ways that nostalgia is used in “political sales pitches” to create fear of hybrid identities, and the current political situation within Pakistan.
This lecture was co-sponsored by the Brandeis-India Initiative and the South Asian Studies Program.
About the Speaker
Mohsin Hamid is the author of four novels, Moth Smoke (2000), The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2007), How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia (2013), and Exit West (2017), and a book of essays, Discontent and Its Civilizations (2016).
His writing has been featured on bestseller lists, adapted for the cinema, shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, selected as winner or finalist of twenty awards, and translated into thirty-five languages.
Born in Lahore, he has spent about half his life there and much of the rest in London, New York, and California.
For more information on Mr. Hamid, please visit his website.