Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West shortlisted for top US book critics' award

Pakistani novelist Mohsin Hamid's Exit West has been shortlisted by the National Book Critics Circle of the US for the 2017 awards for fiction. Photo: file

 

Pakistani novelist Mohsin Hamid's Exit West has been shortlisted by the National Book Critics Circle of the US for the 2017 awards for fiction.

Exit West, which deals with issues of emigration and refugee crisis, is competing with Alice McDermott's The Ninth House, Joan Silber's Improvement, Jesmyn Ward's Sing, Unburied, Sing and The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy.

The National Book Critics Circle Awards, started in 1975 and considered among the most prestigious in American letters, are the sole prizes bestowed by a jury of over 1,000 working critics and book review editors. The awards will be presented on March 15 at the New School in New York City.

Earlier, Hamid's fourth novel Exit West was even shortlisted for The Man Booker Prize, which was ultimately won by George Saunders's Lincoln in the Bardo.

Obama lists Mohsin Hamid's Exit West as one of the best books of 2017

Hamid's fourth novel Exit West was event shortlisted for The Man Booker Prize

Earlier, Hamid's acclaimed novel, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, was also shortlisted for the prize in 2007 and even got made into a feature film by Indian director Mira Nair.

Hamid is the author of four novels, Moth Smoke, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia, and Exit West, and a book of essays, Discontent and Its Civilizations.

Born in Lahore, Hamid spent half his life there and the remaining in New York, California and London.