The Books Interview: Mohsin Hamid

You've moved around a lot. Has that had an effect on your fiction?
I've lived almost a decade in the UK, a decade and a half each in the United States and Pakistan, a year or so in the Far East and in the Mediterranean. Currently my home is in Lahore, so I suppose I'm part of a reverse diaspora - the diaspora of members of the Pakistani diaspora who live in Pakistan. All of it, every life experience, affects my fiction, because my fiction comes from who I am.

What made you move back to Pakistan?
Ever since I left Pakistan to go to college in the US, I'd planned to go back. And I did, several times, for year-long stays. But I never relished the idea of working for someone else in Pakistan. The professional scene here can be frustrating. I also never relished the idea of having children who would grow up far from their grandparents in Lahore. Recently I became able to make a living from my writing, and last year my wife and I had a baby girl. The time had come to move back.

I come from an enormous and very close family. I have over a dozen aunts and uncles in Pakistan, dozens of cousins. I have many close friends. I have received so much love in Lahore that the city always pulls me.

How does Lahore's cultural scene differ from London's?
There are many cultural scenes in Lahore, just as there are in London. And there is a celebrity culture here, just as there is in London. But in Lahore, the celebrity scene doesn't drown out the rest quite so much. Lahore is much cheaper than London, so money is less of a crushing pressure on culture. There are incredible things happening here in cutting-edge music, conceptual art and experimental fiction. It's difficult to compare the cultural scenes in the two places. I love both. But there is something earthy about Lahore. When a poet says something that is true, people spontaneously grunt their agreement, and that moves me.

Full interview here New Statesman

Bringing back joy & pleasure

Last weekend, Pakistan’s rising literary stars and a handful of fiction writers, journalists and poets from India, Bangladesh, UK and the United States gathered to kick off the country’s first literary festival in the pulsing port of Karachi.


In the last ten years, authors of Pakistani English language fiction such as Mohsin Hamid, Nadeem Aslam and Mohammed Hanif have gained increased recognition in the international literary scene, winning accolades and prestigious prizes such as the Betty Trask Award, the Kuriyama Prize and the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize. But until last weekend, there had never been a forum within Pakistan to discuss and celebrate this phenomenon.

Last weekend, Pakistan’s rising literary stars and a handful of fiction writers, journalists and poets from India, Bangladesh, UK and the United States gathered to kick off the country’s first literary festival in the pulsing port of Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city and its financial and economic center. Although the festival was announced to the public merely a day before the inaugural event due to security concerns, the festival’s sessions drew an enthusiastic and diverse audience of Karachiites who listened eagerly to authors discussing their work and debating issues such as the role and challenges of contemporary South Asian English Literature.

Full report here Deccan Herald

Karachi Literature Festival concludes

The two-day Karachi Literary Festival, organised by the British Council and the Oxford University Press (Pakistan) ended Sunday with a host of literary and cultural activities, featuring authors like Musharraf Ali Farooqi, Zulfikar Ghose, Husain Naqvi and Mohsin Hamid.

Comprising of tributes, readings, book launches and discussions, the festival was well attended by literary buffs, students, writers and the general public. One of the highlights of the day was the launch of 50 Poems: 30 Selected 20 New by the critically acclaimed author Zulfikar Ghose. A panel discussion on Sufism and Literature brought together Samina Quraeshi, Amar Jaleel and Mahmood Jamal. While Quraeshi read an excerpt from her recent book, Jamal read a poem directed at fundamentalists of all kinds while commenting that Sufism was not a deviant cult as many perceived it to be.

In the end, many in the audience were left frustrated as an interesting question by a student about the role of Shariah in the context of Sufism went unanswered and was cleverly deflected under the garb of sophisticated expression. Ameena Saiyid, Managing Director of the Oxford University Press and Journalist Asif Noorani talked about what makes a best seller in Pakistan in an interactive session titled “From Manuscript to Bestseller”.

Full report here Daily Times

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Indra Sinha in short list for IMPAC Dublin Literary Award

Animal's People by Indian-British writer Indra Sinha, the tale of a crippled street urchin in an Indian slum and the intrigues that follow the arrival of a humanitarian doctor, is on the short list for the 2009 IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, announced on April 2.

American writers have nabbed four places on the short list. Among them are Pulitzer-Prize-winner Junot Diaz for The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and debut novelist Michael Thomas for Man Gone Down.

Although several Canadians were nominated, including Michael Ondaatje and Douglas Coupland, none made the short list for the 100,000-euro ($166,650 Cdn) prize, one of the world's most lucrative literary prizes.

Judges also nominated two books in translation and the highly acclaimed The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Pakistani-British writer Mohsin Hamid.

The full list includes:
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Dominican-American Díaz, a portrait of a young Dominican man out of step with both America and his parents' homeland.
Ravel by French writer Jean Echenoz (in translation), a quirky portrait of a musical genius.
The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid, the story of a Muslim man's failed life in post-9/11 America.
The Archivist's Story by American Travis Holland, a novel about a Moscow archivist who risks his life to preserve the stories of an imprisoned writer.
The Burnt-Out Town of Miracles by Norwegian Roy Jacobsen (in translation), the story of what happens in a small village in Finland in 1939 as people flee the invading Russians.
The Indian Clerk by American David Leavitt, the story of the strange relationship between an esteemed British mathematician and an unknown, unschooled mathematical genius.
Animal's People by Indian-British writer Indra Sinha, the tale of a crippled street urchin in an Indian slum and the intrigues that follow the arrival of a humanitarian doctor.
Man Gone Down by Michael Thomas, about a young black father of three trying to negotiate his way through the American Dream.

Last year's winner was Canadian Rawi Hage for De Niro's Game. The nominations are made by public libraries around the world. The winner is to be announced June 11.