MOHSIN HAMID presents his astounding new novel: How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia

Start: 03/09/2013 1:00 pm

Saturday, March 9th at 1:00 in the afternoon

Cited as a most-anticipated novel of 2013 by Vogue, The Daily Beast, The Nation, The Guardian, and more...

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

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.

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.

About the Author

Mohsin Hamid's first novel, Moth Smoke, won the Betty Trask Award and was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Prize. His second, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, a bestseller in the United States and abroad, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Hamid contributes to Time, The New York Times, and The Washington Post, among others. He lives in Lahore, Pakistan.

Praise for How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia…

“It is a measure of Mr. Hamid’s audacious talents that he manages to make his protagonist’s story work on so many levels. ‘You’ is, at once, a modern-day Horatio Alger, representing the desires and frustrations of millions in rising Asia; a bildungsroman hero, by turns knavish and recognizably human, who sallies forth from the provinces to find his destiny; and a nameless but intimately known soul, whose bittersweet romance with the pretty girl possesses a remarkable emotional power. With How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia Mr. Hamid reaffirms his place as one of his generation’s most inventive and gifted writers.” –Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

“This brilliantly structured, deeply felt book is written with the confidence and bravura of a man born to write. Hamid is at the peak of his considerable powers here, and delivers a tightly paced, preternaturally wise book about a thoroughly likable, thoroughly troubled striver in the messiest, most chaotic ring of the global economy. Completely unforgettable.” –Dave Eggers, author of A Hologram for the King

"Written in the most compelling second person since Jay McInerney’s Bright Lights, Big City, with which it also shares a sharp take on our frenetic, urban lives, Hamid’s novel proves that the most compelling fiction today is coming from South Asia." –The Daily Beast

"Hamid’s choice to write a bildungsroman wrapped inside a self-help manual is an inspired one… Hamid has left us with no doubts about how state and market, law and crime, nation and corporation, and money and violence go together—in rising Asia as in the rest of the world." –Bookforum

"An astonishing and riveting tale of a man's journey from impoverished rural boy to corporate tycoon." –The Nation

"A joyously barbed satire on entrepreneurialism and the juggernaut of globalisation… Will be one of the standout novels of the year." –The Guardian

"Ambition rules in this playful third novel... subtle and rich." –Publishers Weekly

"Mohsin Hamid is one of the best writers in the world, period. Only a master could have written this propulsive tale of a striver living on the knife's edge, a noir Horatio Alger story for our frenetic, violent times. The road to filthy riches is nasty, brutish, and long, yet Hamid's talent is such that we see the humanity in all this striving—indeed, on finishing this extraordinary book, one wonders if the striving might be the sincerest expression of our flawed, fragile humanity." –Ben Fountain, author of Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

“A dazzling stylistic tour de force; a love story disguised as a self-help guide, freighted with sly social satire. As timely and timeless a novel as I’ve read in years.” –Jay McInerney, author of Bright Lights, Big City and How It Ended

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