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International Studies in Phenomenology and Philosophy

Book | Chapter

208281

"You inside me inside you"

singularity and multitude in Mohsin Hamid's how to get filthy rich in rising Asia

Micah Robbins

pp. 161-175

Abstract

Drawing on the work of contemporary Pakistani writer Mohsin Hamid, especially his novel How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia, this chapter argues that transnational literature not only makes cultural difference available to a global readership, but that it also encourages readers to confront their own positionality within an increasingly glocalized world. Throughout his work, Hamid expresses a critical transnational consciousness that insists upon the singularity of experience, even as it asks readers to recognize that they exist as part of a global multitude that transcends discrete categories of national, cultural, or linguistic identity. He accomplishes this by narrating his novel in the second person, thus collapsing the distance between the singular experiences of his character and the multitude of global readers who encounter the work across space and time. In other words, the narrative's unrelenting "you" not only provides an opportunity for an encounter with difference, but it also creates a context within which the reader's sense of identity is thrown into crisis. But this is a necessary crisis, for it is only through a more critical interrogation of the self that we will be able to arrive at a more complex empathy for our global neighbours. It is precisely in complicating the discourse of 'self" and "other" that Hamid is able to cultivate a productive discomfort with easy notions of communicability and commonality, and thus to encourage a more critical (re)negotiation of the tensions that exist between the global and the local.

Publication details

Published in:

(2018) Language and literature in a glocal world. Dordrecht, Springer.

Pages: 161-175

DOI: 10.1007/978-981-10-8468-3_10

Full citation:

Robbins Micah (2018) „"You inside me inside you": singularity and multitude in Mohsin Hamid's how to get filthy rich in rising Asia“, In: , Language and literature in a glocal world, Dordrecht, Springer, 161–175.