This is the real-life story of 10-year old refugee Hamid, who flees Eritrea with his mother to escape the war and threats to his family from the government. Told in Hamid's own words, this story describes the hardship experienced by immigrants who are rebuilding their lives with little understanding of the language and culture of their new country.

This is the real-life story of 10-year old refugee Hamid, who flees Eritrea with his mother to escape the war and threats to his family from the government. Told in Hamid's own words, this story describes the hardship experienced by immigrants who are rebuilding their lives with little understanding of the language and culture of their new country.

In November 2012, Hamid, a 27-year-old Mumbai-based techie, disappeared. What happened? Where did he go? All his parents knew was that he had gone to Kabul, Afghanistan, to explore a job prospect. Upon some investigation, they found out that their son had been chatting online with some Pakistani friends, especially a girl across the border. Authored by Hamid Ansari and Geeta Mohan, this is the definitive insider account of the man who saw no boundaries when it came to saving a girl from the forced marriage tradition known as wani. Nothing could scare or stop him; until he was ditched by his friends in Pakistan. Soon, he was caught in a whirlwind of allegations made by Pakistani authorities to break him and label him a spy. What followed were years of suffering during the investigations, along with long periods of solitary confinement and a struggle for survival. In India, his mother led a relentless fight, knocking on as many doors as it took, eventually moving three nations, India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, to get him back home, with the help of the then external affairs minister, Sushma Swaraj. On 18 December 2018, Hamid finally touched India soil again. Gritty, heart-wrenching and moving, this is s story of humanity, love, betrayal and hope against all odds.

From the author of the award-winning Moth Smoke comes a perspective on love, prejudice, and the war on terror that has never been seen in North American literature. At a café table in Lahore, a bearded Pakistani man converses with a suspicious, and possibly armed, American stranger. As dusk deepens to night, he begins the tale that has brought them to this fateful meeting. . . Changez is living an immigrant’s dream of America. At the top of his class at Princeton, he is snapped up by Underwood Samson, an elite firm that specializes in the “valuation” of companies ripe for acquisition. He thrives on the energy of New York and the intensity of his work, and his infatuation with regal Erica promises entrée into Manhattan society at the same exalted level once occupied by his own family back in Lahore. For a time, it seems as though nothing will stand in the way of Changez’s meteoric rise to personal and professional success. But in the wake of September 11, he finds his position in his adopted city suddenly overturned, and his budding relationship with Erica eclipsed by the reawakened ghosts of her past. And Changez’s own identity is in seismic shift as well, unearthing allegiances more fundamental than money, power, and perhaps even love. Elegant and compelling, Mohsin Hamid’s second novel is a devastating exploration of our divided and yet ultimately indivisible world. “Excuse me, sir, but may I be of assistance? Ah, I see I have alarmed you. Do not be frightened by my beard: I am a lover of America. I noticed that you were looking for something; more than looking, in fact you seemed to be on a mission, and since I am both a native of this city and a speaker of your language, I thought I might offer you my services as a bridge.” —from The Reluctant Fundamentalist

This is the story of Hamid who was forced to flee with his mother from war-torn Eritrea. It is the story of how they arrived in the UK as refugees with no understanding of the language and culture, and how they rebuilt their lives. When Hamid starts school, it is difficult at first, but then he makes some friends and things start to get better. But the horrors of the war in Eritrea are never far from their thoughts as the family learn of the death of Hamid's father.

FINALIST FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE & WINNER OF THE L.A. TIMES BOOK PRIZE FOR FICTION and THE ASPEN WORDS LITERARY PRIZE “It was as if Hamid knew what was going to happen to America and the world, and gave us a road map to our future… At once terrifying and … oddly hopeful.” —Ayelet Waldman, The New York Times Book Review “Moving, audacious, and indelibly human.” —Entertainment Weekly, “A” rating The New York Times bestselling novel: an astonishingly visionary love story that imagines the forces that drive ordinary people from their homes into the uncertain embrace of new lands, from the author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist and the forthcoming The Last White Man. In a country teetering on the brink of civil war, two young people meet—sensual, fiercely independent Nadia and gentle, restrained Saeed. They embark on a furtive love affair, and are soon cloistered in a premature intimacy by the unrest roiling their city. When it explodes, turning familiar streets into a patchwork of checkpoints and bomb blasts, they begin to hear whispers about doors—doors that can whisk people far away, if perilously and for a price. As the violence escalates, Nadia and Saeed decide that they no longer have a choice. Leaving their homeland and their old lives behind, they find a door and step through. . . . Exit West follows these remarkable characters as they emerge into an alien and uncertain future, struggling to hold on to each other, to their past, to the very sense of who they are. Profoundly intimate and powerfully inventive, it tells an unforgettable story of love, loyalty, and courage that is both completely of our time and for all time.

"Mr. Hamid reaffirms his place as one of his generation's most inventive and gifted writers." –Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times "A globalized version of The Great Gatsby . . . [Hamid's] book is nearly that good." –Alan Cheuse, NPR "Marvelous and moving." –TIME Magazine 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 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.