“I suppose I am someone who likes to wonder,” said internationally renowned author
Mohsin Hamid Tuesday evening in Woodward Hall.
Hamid visited the University of New Mexico to participate in a free talk with book sales and a signing. The event was co-sponsored by Bookworks and the UNM English Department.
He was born in Pakistan and later moved to the U.S. During a creative writing class in college he discovered just how much he loved to write, he said. During this time he started his first novel, “Moth Smoke,” he said.
Hamid never thought that a person could make a living by writing, so he applied to and attended Harvard Law School, where he found he didn’t like practicing law, he said. After graduating, Hamid became a consultant in New York, then worked in London and eventually moved back to Pakistan.
In Pakistan Hamid has settled down with his wife and kids, where he continues to write full-time but still remains connected to the friends he has made in the United States and London, he said.
UNM English Professor Feroza Jussawalla said she started teaching Hamid’s “The Reluctant Fundamentalist” as the second book in her literature and English classes.
“The students actually identified with this book a great deal, because they identified the ways in which the character is marginalized and they feel that they are exposed to the same kinds of racism and exclusion as the character in this novel,” Jussawalla said.
Hamid grew up in a Lahore which was very different from what he saw being described in South Asian fiction, he said.
“I wanted to explore that kind of stuff in fiction and so ‘Molt Smoke’ is a novel all about that,” Hamid said.
In his novels Hamid works out the problem he is personally struggling with and uses his writing to reflect his experiences, he said.
“My novels generally are not my life's story, but they are the things that are important in my life...(My novels) are really informed by the issues that matter to me,” he said.
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While Hamid has migrated constantly and feels that he has experienced the heartache and opportunity that comes with it, his strong feelings on immigration have been reflected in his work as he hopes that one day the negativity toward immigration will be lifted, he said.
“We are all migrants through time,” Hamid said
Marisa Cabanillas is a freelance reporter for the Daily Lobo. She can be contacted at culture@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @DailyLobo.
