Mohsin Hamid: “Sometimes you’ve got to be a little bit brave”

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Pakistani novelist Mohsin Hamid was hosted by Seth Meyers on his night-time talk show “Late night with Seth Meyers” where the two discussed immigration and President Donald Trump’s travel ban.

Hamid appeared on the show to discuss his recently launched novel “Exit West” with the host of the late night NBC talk-show.

Meyers asked Mohsin Hamid about his book which is about a couple in an unnamed country who are forced to continuously move and travel due to the upheavel of everyday life in their own country.

Hamid talked about how different people perceive his work in different ways rather than it being received differently in different areas. According to him, the many different angles a work of fiction can have are often not even known to the author.

“I remember seeing this guy in America, blond hair and blue eyes, and he had my book [The reluctant fundamentalist] in his hands. So I asked him how and why he was reading it, and he explained to me that he had gone to an Ivy League school and gotten a job but had eventually stopped working and became a yoga instructor. And that was the first time I realised the book was also about a liberal arts kid that stops working,” he said as an example.

The conversation moved naturally to the current situation, and given the relevancy of immigration and the topic of his book, Meyers asked Hamid about Donald Trump and the his travel ban. Hamid described that the aim of ‘Exit West’ was to “see ourselves in these characters.”

Taking his book’s characters as an example, Mohsin Hamid also explained how “people who move are people like us, it’s the part where they move that’s different.” When asked whether this was the element that was missing in the conversation about the travel ban, Hamid said “Well . . . there’s lots of elements missing to it, but erm-“ before the live studio audience broke out in sniggers. Hamid jokingly said “it’s a great idea with a couple of small flaws” before going on to give his opinion on the travel ban.

“One part of it is the hysterical level of fear. You know, I live in Pakistan, and things are sometimes a little bit scary, but part of it is that sometimes you’ve got to be a little bit brave,” he said about the motives behind the travel ban.

The audience seemed to enjoy the conversation and Hamid’s quips in the middle of the generally serious conversation.

 

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