The Last White Man by Mohsin Hamid
A man wakes up one morning and discovers that he has changed. Anders’ complexion has darkened overnight, and he feels uncomfortable looking at himself in the mirror. He initially confides in just Oona, an old acquaintance who has since found love. Reports of related incidents start to appear soon. People are waking up in new incarnations all over the country, not knowing how their neighbours, friends, and family would react to them. Some perceive the changes as the long-feared destruction of the existing order, which must be resisted to the very end. Many people, including Anders’s father and Oona’s mother, experience intense loss and discomfort alongside intense love.
As the link between Anders and Oona grows stronger, change assumes a new hue: a chance at a sort of rebirth—a chance to see ourselves, head-on, for the first time.
The Last White Man by Mohsin Hamid
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The Last White Man forcefully elevates our potential for empathy and the transcendence over bigotry, fear, and rage it may attain in Mohsin Hamid’s “lyrical and urgent” prose, according to O Magazine.
In his latest work of futuristic fiction, The Last White Man by Mohsin Hamid, characters unexpectedly awaken with diverse skin tones.
This novel held my interest throughout. Anders woke up with dark skin after going to bed white. He called in ill to work until his employer threatened to fire him if he didn’t come in since he was unaware that this was happening across the nation and he was unsure about how people would react to this “new Anders.” He was doing his own mental acrobatics about how the change in skin colour affected who he was, how he thought about himself, and what it would imply for his future, in addition to worrying about how other people would perceive “this new Anders.” He was more concerned with perceptions of safety than actual safety.
He was concerned about his father’s reaction to him (rightly so). Many of the humans altered as he adjusted to the change, and he came up with some intriguing queries. What would those who were already dark think of these “newly dark” individuals? Could those who were born dark tell who had been a white person before? I absolutely enjoyed all of these questions because I work as a social psychologist. The book was brief, and I got the impression that the plot served primarily as background for the motivations of the characters. As a result, the storyline felt banal despite the book’s strong philosophical underpinnings. It was undoubtedly a fascinating read!
