Literature’s hot property

Mohsin Hamid is tasting the warm glow of celebrity. The cult author of ‘Moth Smoke’, his second novel ‘The Reluctant Fundamentalist’ is pipped as the season’s hottest read – highly praised (Jhumpa Lahiri, Kiran Desai, Nadine Gordimer no less), much promoted, a natural climber for the New York Times bestseller list.

“Oddly enough, it doesn’t feel like life’s changed that much,” says the 35-year-old London-based Mohsin, who’s in Mumbai as part of a mammoth world book tour. “Being a really successful literary novelist is like being a minorly successful rockstar. You tour and go to like 40 cities in a month, but you’re crowds will be 50-100 people – so it’s not like you’re packing in Wembley stadium!” he laughs. “And similarly, it’s not like you make obscene amounts of money. Yes, you sell books but many more will go see ‘Titanic’ than read your books. So literary success is always kind of a modest success. Though, for me, what’s more important is how readers will respond to this book – and that’s still beginning to be seen.”

The novel centres around Changez, a Lahore-born NY-based immigrant who’s enjoying the ‘American Dream’ – a Princeton education, Manhattan girlfriend, high-flying job – till September 11 happens. And his world gets overturned, much like the surface of Hamid’s prose that warm with the movement of their inner ironies.

While the novel has already raised major movie buzz, with Mira Nair said to be ‘interested’, Hamid adds, “She hasn’t optioned the rights yet. I think she’s a fantastic director and she’s very fond of this novel, so we’re sort of speaking to her.” As for Rahul Bose’s involvement with ‘Moth Smoke’, “Rahul is the third director to have optioned ‘Moth Smoke’ – the first was a Italian and then a German – and I believe he’s trying to develop a screenplay on it,” ends Hamid.

d_farhad@dnaindia.net