Mohsin Hamid

Mohsin Hamid is a Pakistani-born English novelist. He was born in Lahore, Pakistan. He was born on 23 July 1971. He was born into a Punjabi family, and they basically belong to Kashmir. Much of his childhood can be traced to the United States. His father was a professor. Hamid`s father was enrolled in Ph. D. at Stanford University. Hamid had to stay from 3-9 years of age in the United States with his family. 

After some time, his family came back to Pakistan. Hamid pursued his early education in Pakistan at Lahore American School. When he reached the age of 18, he returned to the United States in order to get a higher education. Hamid got admission to Princeton University. In 1993, he graduated with the highest scores. Contemporary literary figures such as Joyce Carol Oates and Toni Morrison trained and advised Hamid. 

Being mentored by such skillful writers, he developed a taste for writing. At their workshop of Morrison, Hamid started writing the first draft of his novel. When he graduated, he returned to Pakistan. In Pakistan, he became more focused on writing his novel. After some time in Pakistan, he took a flight to America in order to graduate from Harvard Law School in 1997. 

He started a job at Mckinsey and a company in New York to support his student life. He was appointed as a management consultant. In order to complete his novel, he took some vacations. Afterward, in 2001, he went to London. He planned to spend a year in London, but he spent eight years there. He got citizenship in the United Kingdom in 2006 and became a dual citizen of Pakistan and the United Kingdom.

Hamid`s wife is also from Lahore. She got educated abroad. After marriage, Hamid`s love for traveling increased. His drifting from country to the country made him famous with the name water lily. He moved to Pakistan in 2009 with his wife Zahra and daughter Dina. His life is mostly divided into different parts of the world, such as Lahore, London, New York, Greece, and Italy.

His first novel is Moth Smoke. It got published in 2000. The story of this novel revolves around a drug-addicted man who was an ex-banker. The novel shows the writing skills of Hamid. The narrative techniques used by Hamid gave him ingenious poison in the world of literature. The novel discussed minor issues, but its larger meaning brought it the PEN/Hemingway award.

He published his second novel Reluctant Fundamentalist in 2007. The story of this novel is concerned with the incident of 9/11 and how it affected the life of Pakistanis living in America. Hamid mostly used dramatic monologues in this novel. This book became a part of the New York Times Best-Sellers. This book enhanced the position of Hamid. This novel was selected for the Man Booker Prize. 

It also got so many other prizes, including The Asian American Literary Award and Anisfield Wolf Award. His next publication was How to Get Filthy Rich in Asia. It is a highly praised novel. Mohsin Hamid took part in different fields of life, including Literature, politics and art, and article writing. His works are acknowledged worldwide and have been translated into twenty-five languages.

Mohsin’s next novel was Discontent and its Civilizations. It was published in 2016. NPR called this novel a close impeccable paper assortment loaded up with knowledge, sympathy, and acumen. In this novel, Hamid follows the break lines produced by 10 years and a portion of seismic change, from the war on terror to the battles of people to keep up humankind in the inflexible substance of philosophy or the unconcerned essence of globalization.

His most recent novel, Exit West, was published in 2017. This novel follows the tale of a couple’s departure from their war-torn home through a chain of strange entryways prompting outside terrains. Without a moment’s delay, fantastical and horrendously significant, Exit West investigates subjects of unwaveringly, fearlessness, and expectation in a completely near-future world. 

This novel got shortlisted for the renowned Man Booker Prize in 2017. It also won the debut Aspen Words Literary Prize in 2018. Mohsin’s articles and short stories have shown up in The New York Times, the Guardian, the New Yorker, Granta, TIME, the Washington Post, the New York Review of Books, the Financial Times, and the Paris Review. 

He has been addressed at many colleges around the globe, from Stanford and Yale to the London School of Economics and the National University of Singapore. In 2013, he was named one of the world’s 100 Leading Global Thinkers by Foreign Policy Magazine.