The author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Mohsin Hamid, talks to John Freeman on The Granta Podcast.
Photograph © David Levenson/Getty Images
‘I think there should be a National Service of Hospitality. The best way to see the true face of humanity is to serve it a plate of chips.’
Camilla Grudova on bad-mannered customers.
‘Anyone who has ever worked night shifts will understand the vertiginous feeling that comes with staring down the day from the wrong end.’
A.K. Blakemore on working nights.
‘I was constantly reading job ads, trying to find my holy grail – a job I could stand to do, and someone foolish enough to hire me.’
Sandra Newman on learning how to play professional blackjack.
‘I loved being a receptionist. What I loved about it was playing the part of being a receptionist.’
Emily Berry on being a temporary office worker.
‘Every part of you would swell, including your eyeballs, and no matter how much water you drank, you were always dehydrated.’
Junot Díaz on working for a steel mill.
‘I have come to believe that we are all migrants, that the experience of migration unites all human beings.’
‘I think of betrayal as a crack in the veneer of humanity, an act that reveals to us, and others, our base animal nature.’
‘She does not stare at you, but when your eyes meet, she does not look away.’
‘Fundamentalist mangoes must have more texture; secular mangoes should have artificial flavouring.’
‘Rest assured, it was no ordinary ale that they drank by the Ouse while in Westminster crowds thronged.’
