Discontent and its Civilizations: Dispatches from Lahore, New York, and London [Paperback]

From the bestselling author of How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia, andExit West, coming in March 2017, “a near-perfect essay collection, filled with insight, compassion, and intellect. (NPR)

In both his internationally bestselling fiction and his wide-ranging journalism, Mohsin Hamid has earned a reputation as a master critic of the modern global condition (Foreign Policy). A water lily who has called three countries on three continents his home (Pakistan, the birthplace to which he returned as a young father; the United States, where he spent his childhood and young adulthood; and Britain, where he married and became a citizen), he has achieved a truly
panoramic perspective on the clash of forces - political, economic, religious, cultural - that have transfigured the face of contemporary life and shaken the old certainties about how to navigate it.
 
InDiscontent and Its Civilizations, Hamid traces the fracture lines generated by a decade and a half of seismic change, from the war on terror to the struggles of individuals to maintain humanity in the rigid face of ideology, or the indifferent face of globalization. Whether he is discussing courtship rituals or pop culture, drones or the rhythms of daily life in an extended family compound, he transports us beyond the alarmist headlines of an anxious West and a volatile East and helps to bring a dazzling diverse world within emotional and intellectual reach.

“Hamid is an amazingly gifted writer, and Discontent and Its Civilizations is a near-perfect essay collection, filled with insight, compassion, and intellect. It's a powerful look at the way people juggle their individuality with the tensions that inevitably result from being part of a community.” —NPR

“Often compelling … Its strongest entries reflect the same subtleties of thought [as his novels], laid down in his lapidary,l³.