How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia
Pakistan

How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia

by Mohsin Hamid

Society & Class Fiction 2013

Summary

Told in the second person, as though the reader is the protagonist, Mohsin Hamid’s inventive novel follows an unnamed boy’s extraordinary journey from rural poverty to immense wealth in a rapidly transforming South Asian city. Structured like a self-help manual, each chapter offers a rule for achieving financial success, from leaving the village to exploiting opportunities in the marketplace. As the protagonist moves into the city, he builds a business selling bottled water, turning a basic necessity into the foundation of his growing empire. Yet wealth brings neither complete security nor lasting fulfilment. Throughout his rise, he remains connected to a woman he first met as a teenager, whose own life follows a different but equally turbulent path. Against a backdrop of urbanisation, corruption, consumerism, and widening inequality, Hamid examines the costs of ambition in a society where almost everything has a price. Witty, romantic, and sharply observant, How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia is both a satire of self-help culture and a moving reflection on love, mortality, and the elusive meaning of success.

Reviews

Login to leave a review.

No reviews yet. Be the first!

You might also like

The Museum Detective
The Museum Detective
Maha Khan Phillips
Street Fighting Years
Street Fighting Years
Tariq Ali
You Can’t Please All
You Can’t Please All
Tariq Ali
Night of the Golden Butterfly (The Islam Quintet)
Night of the Golden Butterfly (The Islam Quintet)
Tariq Ali
Country
Pakistan
Asia
About the author
Mohsin Hamid
Mohsin Hamid

Mohsin Hamid is a Pakistani-British novelist and essayist born in Lahore, Pakistan, in 1971. He spent part of his childhood in the United States before returning to Pakistan and later studying at Princeton University and Harvard Law School. His life across different countries has shaped his exploration of migration, identity, globalization, and the shifting boundaries between home and belonging. Hamid gained international recognition with Moth Smoke (2000), a novel about class divisions and corruption in contemporary Lahore. His subsequent works include The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2007), which examines identity and suspicion in the aftermath of September 11, and Exit West (2017), a speculative novel about two lovers fleeing their country through mysterious doors that transport people across borders. Shortlisted for the Booker Prize, Exit West explores displacement, love, and the human consequences of migration. Hamid’s fiction combines political insight with experimental storytelling, questioning how individuals navigate a world shaped by inequality, cultural change, and global movement.

View author page
Details
Published
2013
Author
Mohsin Hamid