How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia by Mohsin Hamid

From the internationally best-selling author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist, comes Mohsin Hamid's How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia.

 

How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia. is the astonishing and riveting tale of a man's journey from impoverished rural boy to corporate tycoon. It follows its nameless hero to the sprawling metropolis (an unnamed contemporary city in “rising Asia") 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. 

 

Stealing its shape from the self-help books devoured by ambitious youths all over “rising Asia,” the novel is genre-bending and playful but also reflective and profound in its portrayal of the thirst for ambition and love in a time of shattering economic and social upheaval. How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia, Mohsin Hamid's third novel, confirms that this radically inventive storyteller is among the most important of today's international writers.

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.

228 pages (March 2013)

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