The Last White Man: A Novel (Large Print / Paperback)
Staff Reviews
This slim novel by Mohsin Hamid (Exit West) imagines a world where the concept of race is exposed for what it is -- a made-up construct born in schismogenetic anxieties. Anders awakens one morning to find that his skin color has changed from white to brown. The same thing is happening to other people in his town, and with the change in skin color comes fear, violence, isolation, and a disintegration of community infrastructure. When Anders is threatened by racist thugs, his dying father takes him in, and his girlfriend, Oona, is still willing to be with him. Gradually, the entire population turns brown, and, after some time has passed, the anxiety and violence diminish, and life goes on. Coming as it does in the midst of a pandemic and a time of political and social upheaval, the novel gives a clear sense of the angst that tends to drive people apart but imagines a future world that is focused less on differences and more on similarities among human beings.
— AliceAugust 2022 Indie Next List
“I loved this book! Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West stands up as one of my favorites, even years later. His newest delivers just as brilliantly. Themes of race and bigotry, couched in almost fable-like storytelling, feel timely, yet enduring.”
— Rebekah Rine, Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, KS
About the Author
Mohsin Hamid is the author of the international bestsellers Exit West and The Reluctant Fundamentalist, both finalists for the Man Booker Prize. His first novel, Moth Smoke, won the Betty Trask Award and was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Foundation Award. His essays, a number of them collected as Discontent and Its Civilizations, have appeared in The New York Times, the Washington Post, The New York Review of Books, and elsewhere. He divides his time between Lahore, New York, and London.