THE RELUCTANT FUNDAMENTALIST

In this short novel, a bearded man in a Pakistan café spends a few hours telling his life story to a mysterious American. Because the tale is told as a monologue--the Pakistani speaking directly to his companion--the audiobook listener assumes the surrogate position of the American. The Pakistani, a former Wall Street whiz kid, tells a tale of reaction--how his return to Pakistan and his subsequent nationalism were prompted by the way he was treated in post-9/11 New York. It's never clear from narrator Satya Bhabha's focused performance whether the American is there to befriend or harm the Pakistani. Ultimately that ambiguity makes the story all the more interesting because it puts the symbolic choice in the listener's hands. R.W.S. © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine [Published: OCT/ NOV 07]