Mohsin Hamid and the transnational novel of globalization

Mohsin Hamid’s three novels, all written since the year 2000, have established him as a rising star of the transnational novel of globalization, featuring prominently in what Bruce King calls ‘the current golden age of writing by Muslims’. All are forms of the Bildungsroman and play out their individual dramas with respect to present-day Pakistan’s relationship with the West. They can be read alongside the work of contemporaries such as Hanif Kureishi, Kamila Shamsie, and Kirwan Desai, who in showing the human consequences of East-West polarization, give space and voice to the Muslim subject. In each novel Hamid challenges the interpretative powers of his audience by questioning pre-determined reading positions; and through a literary poetics which draws on the proliferating collectivities and networks of globalization, in his third novel he hints at a widening arc of international sympathy and understanding.