SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZEAn award-winning, thrillingly provocative international bestseller - adapted to a major motion picture starring Riz Ahmed and Kiefer Sutherland - from the author of Exit West'Excuse me, sir, but may I be of assistance? Ah, I see I have alarmed you. Do not be frightened by my beard. I am a lover of America . . . ' So speaks the mysterious stranger at a Lahore cafe as dusk settles. Invited to join him for tea, you learn his name and what led this speaker of immaculate English to seek you out. For he is more worldly than you might expect; better travelled and better educated. He knows the West better than you do. And as he tells you his story, of how he embraced the Western dream -- and a Western woman -- and how both betrayed him, so the night darkens. Then the true reason for your meeting becomes abundantly clear . . .Challenging, mysterious and thrillingly tense, Mohsin Hamid's masterly The Reluctant Fundamentalist is a vital read teeming with questions and ideas about some of the most pressing issues of today's globalised, fractured world. PRAISE FOR THE RELUCTANT FUNDAMENTALIST: 'Beautifully written . . . more exciting than any thriller I've read for a long time' Philip Pullman 'Admirably spare and amazingly exciting' Rachel Cooke, New Statesman 'Sharp, relevant, impressively intelligent . . . entertains at the same time as it makes you think' Daily Telegraph 'A cleverly constructed fable of infatuation and disenchantment . . . Intelligent and highly engaging, genuinely provocative' Guardian 'A brilliant book' Kiran Desai 'Prods the intellect, quickens the pace and captures the imagination' Sunday Times