How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia

Description

From the internationally bestselling author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist and Exit West, the boldly imagined tale of a poor boy’s quest for wealth and love 

How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia is Mohsin Hamid’s spectacular, thought-provoking novel of modern Asia

A sharp, fresh satire for the ruthless modern world

How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia is a striking slice of contemporary life at a time of crushing upheaval. Romantic without being sentimental, political without being didactic, and spiritual without being religious, it brings an unflinching gaze to the violence and hope it depicts. And it creates two unforgettable characters who find moments of transcendent intimacy in the midst of shattering change.

His first two novels established Mohsin Hamid as a radically inventive storyteller with his finger on the world’s pulse. How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia meets that reputation—and exceeds it. The astonishing and riveting tale of a man’s journey from impoverished rural boy to corporate tycoon, it steals its shape from the business self-help books devoured by ambitious youths all over “rising Asia.” It follows its nameless hero to the sprawling metropolis where he begins to amass an empire built on that most fluid, and increasingly scarce, of goods: water. Yet his heart remains set on something else, on the pretty girl whose star rises along with his, their paths crossing and recrossing, a lifelong affair sparked and snuffed and sparked again by the forces that careen their fates along.

Reviews

“A showcase for its author’s audacious talents… both an affecting and highly specific tale of love and ambition, and a larger metaphorical look at the startling social and economic changes that are … changing the lives of millions”— Michiko Kakutani, in her “10 Favorite Books of 2013,” The New York Times

“A love story and bildungsroman disguised as a self-help book, and the result has all the inventiveness, exuberance and pathos that the writer’s fans have come to expect… Marvelous and moving.” — TIME Magazine

“Extraordinarily clever… Hamid has taken the most American form of literature—the self-help book—and transformed it to tell… a surprisingly moving story.” — Ron Charles, The Washington Post

“Wonderfully astringent… Hamid is a sly witness to a traditional culture’s dizzying trajectory—supermodels stalk city billboards; a drone hovers ominously in the sky—but his satiric impulse gives way to compassion for the intimacies that keep us tethered in a rapidly changing world.” — Vogue

“This is one of those original works that are also resonant as a record of human experience and geo-political shift, and a strong argument for Hamid as one of the most important writers working today. An enjoyable read no matter who ‘you’ are.” — The Daily Beast

“An astonishing and riveting tale of a man’s journey from impoverished rural boy to corporate tycoon.” — The Nation

“Fiction fans should be grateful Mohsin Hamid left his New York corporate cubicle to pursue his grand ambitions of becoming a novelist.” —The Atlantic

“Effervescent… a universal story, wrought in tightly minimal, evocative prose… Mr. Hamid has delivered a payload more nourishing than any self-help book.” ­— The New York Observer

“An ultra-intelligent and knowing account of life in the developing world, as well as an increasingly moving love-story… Simply brilliant.” — The Daily Mail

“Daringly original… page-turning.” — The Independent

“Ambition rules in this playful third novel… subtle and rich.” — Publishers Weekly

“A marvelous book.” — Philip Pullman, author of The Golden Compass

Author Biography

Mohsin Hamid is the author of five novels — Moth Smoke, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia, Exit West, and The Last White Man — and a book of essays, Discontent and Its Civilizations. His writing has been translated into forty languages, featured on bestseller lists, and adapted for the cinema. Born in Lahore, he has spent about half his life there and much of the rest in London, New York, and California.