Mohsin Hamid
Mohsin Hamid
Mohsin Hamidis a British Pakistani novelist and writer. His novels are Moth Smoke, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, and How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia...
NationalityPakistani
ProfessionWriter
CountryPakistan
believe book years
I believe one can gauge a book's impact only after about 10 years.
writing novelists researchers
I am not much of a researcher as a novelist; I write mainly from experience.
growing-up shadow pakistan
Growing up in Pakistan in the 1980s, I lived in the shadow of a tyrannical state.
writing novel invitations
For me, writing a novel is like solving a puzzle. But I don't intend my novels as puzzles. I intend them as invitations to dance.
writing
Being a writer is not the point. Writing is.
hands facts facts-of-life
As a writer, I am constantly aware that I take my life in my hands with everything I do and say. It's just a fact of life. For me it always has been.
america world arms
America's strength has made it a sort of Gulliver in world affairs: By wiggling its toes it can, often inadvertently, break the arm of a Lilliputian.
thinking encounters should
A reader should encounter themselves in a novel, I think.
book writing years
I take six or seven years to write really small books. There is a kind of aesthetic of leanness, of brevity.
thinking self links
I think there's a natural link between the fact that our self is a story that we make up and that we're drawn to stories. It resonates, in a way.
bird flying borders
Maybe we are all prospective migrants. The lines of national borders on maps are artificial constructs, as unnatural to us as they are to birds flying overhead. Our first impulse is to ignore them.
self humanity brain
We need a self because the complexity of the chemical processes that make up our individual humanities exceeds the processing power of our brains.
actors world pakistan
The world seems concerned with Pakistan primarily as an actor in global attempts to combat terrorism.
land interesting comedian
Pakistan hasn't been cast in the role of... interesting cultural place or, you know, land of great comedians.