Book Review: "The Last White Man" by Mohsin Hamid

Mohsin Hamid's latest novel, The Last White Man, is powerful, thought-provoking, and so timely.

“One morning Anders, a white man, woke up tofind he had turned a deep and undeniable brown.”

So begins the latest book by the author of Exit West, a book I absolutely loved. Anders doesn’t understand what happened to him, and for a while he can hardly believe he is the person looking back at him in the mirror. He feels totally different and feels everyone is judging him differently (although that could just be his paranoia).

He keeps his secret from everyone around him except Oona, an old friend with whom he’s recently become much closer. But as the same phenomenon starts occurring to many others, people wonder what could be causing this and what it means.

This is a fascinating story, with a walk-a-mile-in-my-shoes feel, and it’s tremendously thought-provoking. How often do we feel like strangers in our own skin when nothing has changed, so this is pretty profound.

I wanted a bit more from the book, but I honestly just love the way Hamid writes and captures both emotion and the zeitgeist of the moment. This would definitely be a great book for book club discussion.