Portrait of the Intellectual as an Angry Young Man: Reading Mohsin Hamid's Reluctant Fundamentalist

Articles in Press

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 PhD Candidate, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.

2 Associate Professor, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.

Abstract

The present article dwells on the portrait of the intellectual as an angry young man in Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist. The study explores Hamid’s novel through the method of close reading to conduct a succinct examination of Changez, its central character. Edward Said’s categorization of the intellectuals form the theoretical foundation, and Key Saidian notions such as ‘professionalism’, ‘amateurism’ and ‘exile’ have been explored and contextualized in the novel. This research demonstrates that in Hamid’s hands Changez turns into a Saidian individual intellectual who traffics in ideas and becomes an embodiment of a peculiar angle of vision; this newly emerging Middle-Eastern young man forcefully speaks the truth against the silent American man. The research contends that the core of Hamid’s representation focuses on an angry young intellectual that dodges the old and the new with equal dexterity and struggles to ‘situate’ himself within the socio-political field to represent his own viewpoint concerning the socio-political crisis in post-9/11 world. The findings confirm that after being exposed to actual and metaphysical exile Changez abandons professionalism and turns into a Saidian amateur intellectual who develops critical consciousness and makes it his mission to emancipate and enlighten people from his background and beyond.

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Main Subjects

Critical Literary Studies

Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript
Available Online from 22 June 2026

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History

  • Receive Date: 12 January 2026
  • Revise Date: 09 June 2026
  • Accept Date: 21 June 2026

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