Last night The Clapham Grand smelled of excited anticipation. The Grand had laid on a hearty spread in honour of its sometime guest, Bookslam. This self-styled ‘literary nightclub’ is amassing an impressive alumni of performers including Geoff Dyer, Andrea Levy and Hanif Kureishi. Last night to this list was added Mohsin Hamid, the Booker-shortlisted author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist.  The protagonist of this, Hamid’s second novel, is Changez – a Pakistani man who sits down in a Lahore café to tell his life story to an unsuspecting America stranger. The relationship itself becomes all the more fascinating as Changez reveals how he fell in and out of love with his listener’s homeland.

Many of the audience at The Grand came bearing their copies of The Reluctant Fundamentalist almost like stamps of authenticity. Although the book raises brave questions about the nature of cultural identity it is often its compelling narrative style that its fans feel most strongly about. Changez speaks to the reader and makes blunt assumptions about their lives and thoughts. In this way Hamid confronts the reader personally with the effects of a world where we are becoming all too keen to define people by their cultural heritage. Hamid remarked that he has settled into a seven-year cycle for each book he writes. This means we have until 2013 to wait for his next offering.  We also have that time to hope that the issues he has raised in his work so far become less and less relevant to our society.