The Reluctant Fundamentalist is Mohsin Hamid's thrillingly provocative international bestseller, available as a Penguin Essential for the first time.

Shortlisted for the Man Booker prize in 2007

Now a major film directed by Mira Nair and starring Kate Hudson and Kiefer Sutherland

'Excuse me, sir, but may I be of assistance? Ah, I see I have alarmed you. Do not be frightened by my beard. I am a lover of America . . . '

So speaks the mysterious stranger at a Lahore cafe as dusk settles. Invited to join him for tea, you learn his name and what led this speaker of immaculate English to seek you out. For he is more worldy than you might expect; better travelled and better educated. He knows the West better than you do. And as he tells you his story, of how he embraced the Western dream -- and a Western woman -- and how both betrayed him, so the night darkens. Then the true reason for your meeting becomes abundantly clear . . .

Challenging, mysterious and thrillingly tense, Mohsin Hamid's masterly The Reluctant Fundamentalist is a vital read teeming with questions and ideas about some of the most pressing issues of today's globalised, fractured world.

'Masterful . . . A multi-layered and thoroughly gripping book, which works as a poignant love story, a powerful dissection of how US imperialist machinations have turned so many people against the world's superpower - and as a thriller that subtly ratchets up the nerve-jangling tension towards an explosive ending' Metro

'Beautifully written . . . more exciting than any thriller I've read for a long time' Philip Pullman

'A brilliant book' Kiran Desai

'Admirably spare and amazingly exciting' Rachel Cooke, New Statesman