Mohsin Hamid: So wirst du stinkreich im boomenden Asien
Translated from the English by Eike Schönfeld
DuMont Buchverlag 2013
(How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia; Riverhead Books, New York 2013)
About the book
So wirst du stinkreich im boomenden Asien tells the astonishing and dramatic story of a man who transforms from a dirty and sickly boy from the impoverished countryside to a corrupt businessman, in the process spoofing the advice books that are read en masse by hopeful young men in Asia today. The nameless hero makes his first money in a huge city of millions, building up a veritable empire by trading in the most vital and precious good of all, water. He loses his heart to a young girl whose star ascends in parallel to his own. Again and again, their paths and fates cross. The hero of this rapidly told story could be any one of us, in search of a better life. Charged with tempo, this novel tells of moments of intimacy and stirring social transformations in the world of today.
About the author
Mohsin Hamid, born in 1971 and raised in Lahore, Pakistan, studied law at Harvard and literature at Princeton. After living in New York and London, Hamid now lives once again in Lagore. He writes regularly for the Guardian, the New York Times, the Financial Times, the New Yorker, Paris Review, Outlook India, and Granta. His novels have been translated into over thirty languages. The Reluctant Fundamentalist was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and was recently filmed by Mira Nair. Moth Smoke was awarded the Betty Trask Award and named one of the most important books of 2000 by the New York Times.
Recent publications:
Discontent and its Civilizations: Dispatches from Lahore, New York, and London
(Riverhead, New York 2015)
Der Fundamentalist, der keiner sein wollte
Hoffmann und Campe 2007, trans. by Eike Schönfeld
(The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Riverhead 2007)
Nachtschmetterlinge
DuMont 2013, trans. by Thomas Mohr
(Moth Smoke, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux New York 2000)
About the translator
Eike Schönfeld, born in 1949, has been translating from the English for over 25 years, including works by Shalom Auslander, Nicholson Baker, Saul Bellow, Jeffrey Eugenides, Jonathan Franzen, Daniel Mendelsohn, Steven Millhauser, Vladimir Nabokov, J. D. Salinger and Sloan Wilson. He has received numerous awards for his translations. In 2014, he and Nicholson Baker received the International Herman Hesse Award.
Recent publications:
Nick Cave: Das Spucktütenlied
Kiepenheuer & Witsch 2016, trans. by Eike Schönfeld
(The Sick Bag Song; Canongate Books, 2016)
Jonathan Franzen: Unschuld
Rowohlt 2015, aus dem Englischen von Eike schönfeld und Bettina Abarbanell
(Purity; Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York 2015)
Ryan Gebhart: Bärenschwur
Aladin 2015, trans. by Eike Schönfeld
(There will be bears, Candlewick Press, Somerville 2014)
Nicholson Baker: So geht‘s: Essays
Rowohlt 2015, trans. by Eike Schönfeld
(The Way the World Works: Essays, Simon & Schuster, New York 2012)
Charles Dickens: Der Weihnachtsabend: genauer, eine weihnachtliche Gespenstergeschichte
Insel Verlag 2014, trans. by Eike Schönfeld
(A Christmas Carol, 1843)
Richard Yates: Eine gute Schule
btb Verlag 2014, trans. by Eike Schönfeld
(A Good School, 1978)
Oscar Wilde: Das Bildnis des Dorian Gray
Insel Verlag 2014, trans. by Eike Schönfeld
(Picture of Dorian Gray, 1890)
The jury on the short list nomination
“Twelve chapters, twelve bits of advice, and the rise of a jaundice-faced country boy to a multimillionaire. The American dream, Asian style. Hamid’s fake of a self-help book tells of the bitter struggle of people on the Indian subcontinent for a better life, where love, dignity, and humanity are sacrificed at the altar of urbanization and globalization in the name of success. The humor and irony of the original were wonderfully captured in this translation by Eike Schönfeld.”
