“the last white man”

Mohsin hamid in his political novel has shown identity crisis like Kafka has shown in metamorphosis. Upon waking up, the protagonist got to know that he had turned black! He felt homeless and cannot recognize himself. He called away his girlfriend “Oona” and she promised to visit him in the evening and when she do, she felt uncomfortable by the changed colorof his skin. When his father got to know about the transition of Andrew’s colour, he felt unease and can’t recognize him as his boy. Gradually, the whole town starting turning black and lose their identities. In last, everybody turned black and darker except “Andrew’s father” who fortunately died. Oona’s mother, with great pride and nostalgia used to tell the tales of how the town used to be white to her grandchildrens.

The novel sheds light on how race conditions our perception of others as well as others. All the people of town saw themself changing and waited themselves to get “voilant, uncivilised”. Even some killed themselves. Mohsin’s novels are the one who related back to the theories of Edwar Said when he narrates the “colonial guilt”. The identity is deep rooted in one’s culture, one language and one’s surronding. When someone bashes your identity to be “inferior” or uncivilised, that is untolerable. That has been happening entire history with “coloured people” by “white people”