Unfortunately I read this when long-term sick and so while I noted a star rating, at the time I didn't have capacity for reviews for everything I was reading, and am only now just getting round to giving my feedback. Sorry that's not super helpful

I loved the idea of this one…imagine a world where people changed race randomly….but it didn’t go into the implications enough for me. I wanted it to be a gritty look at race and how society treats you depending on your colour, but I just found this to be rambling and it didn’t actually explore anything.
At least it’s short.

The concept was thought provoking and I think this was done well, particularly considering it's short page count. This just wasn't for me, but I'd still recommend for others!

When I read Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West, I recommended it to absolutely everyone, and this was another really great book from the author. Hamid again uses magical realism as a fascinating device to explore the connotations and ramifications of race. In this quite short novel, Hamid confronts the reality of inter-racial relationships—whether familial, casual, or romantic—drawing attention to the arrogance of self-superiority that many white people feel when interacting with people of other races, and the way that white people often avoid addressing race as an issue, until it happens to affect them personally.

my second book by this author and i enjoyed it just as much as the first Exit West. The book is short but there is plenty to get ones brain working!"

A provocative and timely update of Kafka’s The Metamorphosis - a quick read but a deeply powerful one.

“One morning Anders, a white man, woke up to find he had turned a deep and undeniable brown. This dawned upon him gradually, and then suddenly”

My thanks to Penguin General U.K. Hamish Hamilton for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘The Last White Man’ by Mohsin Hamid. My apologies for the late feedback.

This short novel is clearly inspired by Kafka's ‘The Metamorphosis’ as the novel’s protagonist, Anders, wakes to find that his skin has turned dark. At first he hides away only telling his friend, Oona. Yet soon there are reports of similar occurrences across the land. Eventually Anders emerges to confront this fundamentally changed reality.

Other characters respond to the change in various ways, including Oona’s mother who is so distressed that she begins to frequent extreme right wing Internet forums. Yet as the transformations progress how can such prejudices continue or will it incite in further violence and hateful rhetoric?

A few years ago I read Mohsin Hamid’s Booker Prize shortlisted ‘Exit West’ that utilised magical realism in the form of mysterious doors that transported refugees and migrants to new lands.

In a similar way the transformations serve as a powerful allegory that addresses various responses to race and racism. It clearly taps into the white nationalists’ fears of the ‘Great Replacement’.

Overall, I found ‘The Last White Man’ an intelligent, well written novel that was very thought provoking.

The Last White Man by Mohsin Hamid is an interesting concept. Anders, a white man, one day wakes to find that his skin is now brown. It reminded me of Frank Kafka's Metamorphosis, but for a modern era. Race is a big topic in the world so I thought it would be interesting to see how Anders does in the book. I liked how it was described how Anders felt when he ventured into the world after his transformation and felt more exposed and feared by people he once knew, and also how society reacted when more and more white people were waking up with brown skin. I feel the book could have gone further, there's no explanation given for the change and attempt by anyone to try and understand the biological changes that could have occurred. Overall I enjoyed the book, it was easy to read and flowed well but I feel that the characters didn't do much and there could have been more depth about society and how people within it still behave regarding race.

“The Last White Man” by Mohsin Hamid is a speculative fiction novel about a young white man called Anders. One morning, Anders wakes to find that his appearance is changed. He is no longer white. Confused and unsure what to do, he reaches out to his friend and lover Oona. As they slowly renegotiate their relationship, other people in society start experiencing changes in their appearance and skin colour until it becomes clear that society will never be the same again.

This was a deceptively simple book that explored race and racism in a novel way: what would happen if people who had lived their lives as white suddenly had to live their lives with a different racial appearance? Hamid uses a small but effective cast of characters to explore some of the subtle and not-so-subtle racist views that people harbour, and how those views must be grappled with in the new society he has created. Some of these issues play out in public displays of violence and conflict, while others play out in the privacy of family homes. Particularly effective were the interactions between Oona and her mother, whose refusal to accept the situation becomes untenable, and Anders and his father, who find a new understanding through this experience. However, I also thought that the otherwise banal setting of the gym where Anders works was where issues of discrimination, exploitation and tolerance were truly borne out.

I think the only thing that I found myself wanting was a bit more of an explanation of why this had happened. With a confidence that I can only admire, Hamid just sets the scene without any attempt to justify – scientifically or otherwise – what is causing people to change. I think I would have liked just the merest whiff of a theory to cling to.

A thought-provoking and original story that encourages the reader to really think about the social impacts of racism.

This short read is quite disjointed in parts and the premise has been told better elsewhere in print. Anders does not come across very well and seems to view the world through very superficial eyes throughout the novel.

Disappointing read, so much promise but didn't reach the mark for me.

Anders wakes up one morning to find that he has changed from a white man to a black man overnight. The phenomenon is never explained, but it happens rapidly across America. His own father ends up being the last white man. Anders is a likeable character, and we sympathise with his experience and how he comes to feel about himself. A short book, compelling and fascinating.

What a concept-loved it and the questions it made me ask myself and the conversations it started with others.

The book instantly pulls you in and the characters are well written and believable.

Read if you like thought provoking fiction.

Thank you very much to NetGalley and the publishers for getting to read Mohsin Hamid's latest novella. I am a real fan of his work, particularly Exit West and The Reluctant Fundamentalist which have both been nominated for the Booker Prize.

I don't think that The Last White Man will make Hamid a third time booker nominee. Most of his work is short - but this is incredibly short, and I just wanted more from it. It's a fascinating premise, wonderfully written but I wanted to explore it more.

This, like Exit West, would be categorised as magical realism. It is a conscious echo of Kafka's Metamorphosis from the opening line:

"One morning Anders, a white man woke up to find he had turned a deep and undeniable brown."

(as compared to "As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect." - you may be familiar with a different first line if you have read a different translation.)

This curious phenomenon spreads until over time, the whole of society turns dark except for one white man left. (view spoiler) We see this from the perspective of Anders and Oona, along with Oona's widowed mother and Anders' widowed father who is dying of cancer. Anders is relieved he is not the only one who has changed, and it quickly becomes clear that the change will happen to everyone eventually.

It's an examination of racism - but as the reader, you are left to extrapolate a lot for yourself. It's the kind of book that you finish and need to sit and think what you've read and what it means and what it doesn't mean, what it says, what you assume, and what that says about you. You just need to sit a little longer and work something out... but you aren't sure what.

The narrative style is beautiful - although it might take getting used to. Each sentence is almost stream of consciousness, many conjunctives making the sentences long and almost dreamlike. I think this suited the book very well, but I realise some people will claim it's pretentious and 'too literary.' It certainly didn't feel so for me; the words wash over you and the story is so short and unravels so fast that it would be difficult to read it in more than one sitting. The unique narrative voice really works for me.

The most interesting character was actually Oona's mother, a conspiracy theorist, and - although it is never stated - probably quite racist. She finds herself 'proud' to be one of the last people to change, which really made me think about underlying perceptions and prejudices that people deny even to themselves. The emotion in this slim novella is so strong but understated; it is like Hamid's other writing in this way.

Because of its brevity, it feels almost like a parable, but there is no clear message. There is, as in Exit West, a general feeling of potential optimism, but I probably wouldn't go further than that.

Having said I wanted I want it to be longer, it does work at the length it is. It's almost like a thought experiment. Hamid continues to probe our prejudices and societal norms in a subtle and non-threatening way; I will always be excited to read something new by him.


Side note, here is what Hamid said inspired him to write this:

This sense that whiteness itself was worth thinking about from within, and my need to write this novel grew during the aughts, when I lived in London, encountering more of a threatened whiteness during the unease that morphed into Brexit.

I wanted to explore whiteness as honestly and sympathetically but also unsparingly and brutally as possible, as one might explore religiosity here in Pakistan, where there’s been a rise in intolerant discourse. I watch parallels between Muslim-majority societies and white-majority societies, and I participate in an acknowledgment of a sense of loss. I don’t regard whiteness as a monolithic thing. All of my characters are experiencing the loss of whiteness in different ways.

For this handful of characters, whiteness dies as a mutual participatory category.

Fascinating, thought provoking stuff - get a copy when it comes out!

A thought provoking read.

The last white man is the story of Anders who wakes up one day and finds he has suddenly turned brown. Anders is now questioning his identity and starts to see all of the privileges he previously enjoyed that he now struggles to access.

The last white man explored love, loss, race, identity and privilege. It is a story that makes you question our own identity and how much of our identity is shaped by ourselves and how much by how others perceive you.

Definitely worth reading.

I read this book because I had read The Reluctant Fundamentalist but have to admit I really didn’t enjoy this one. The interminably long sentences with commas where there should have been full stops became irritating rather than lyrical. I was hoping for a deeper thought process of this phenomenon of white men turning into black men overnight. This was so superficial and seemed to be more concerned with Anders and Ooona’s relationship, which in itself was pretty flimsy. Sorry just not my cup of tea.

This story has you thinking throughout What if? An original and interesting story. Anders the stories main character undergoes not just a skin colour change but also a personality change as he adapts to peoples changed perceptions of him..

This was the first book I have read from Mohsin Hamid I liked what the author was trying to do with this one, I cant work out if he pulled it off or not. The premise of the story is good and it is very thought provoking, And I am thinking about it weeks after finishing it.
The writing style was somewhat confusing, some of it was poetic almost to the point of being lyrical, in the next breath you would have a long mundane almost boring paragraph, I found myself getting distracted when reading it.
This book challenges our way of thinking about race but also of our acceptance of different races and cultures The more people that change to a darker shade of skin around the more people accept that change. There is initially confusion, fear and hatred followed by adjustment and then acceptance for most but not all.
I didn't enjoy it as much as I expected to but the writer has intrigued me and I will definitely pick up another book by Mohsin Hamid.
Thankyou to NetGalley and the Author for giving me access to an ARC in return for an honest review.

Anders, a white man, wakes up one morning to find his skin has turned dark. Slowly, and then all at once, the same takes place across the unnamed town he lives in, upending civil society as Anders knows it. Oona, Anders' on-again, off-again girlfriend, struggles to find a place in this new world, still trying to cope with the death of her brother and father. This novel is a mere 200 pages but it has a lot going on, and sadly, that resulted in a flat, scattered narrative that I struggled to connect with.

Let's start with what I liked: Hamid's prose style is vivid, and there are flashes of brilliance in this novel, no doubt. The concept is so intriguing, and rather than digging into the "why" of people's skin colour changing, the author instead looks at the impact it has on people's communities. I found this fascinating, and it's a more nuanced way to look at things than one would expect.

Overall, though, The Last White Man committed the gravest of sins - it was boring. Yes, as the novel progresses, the characters' situations become more fraught. Violence erupts; people are forced into their homes in a COVID-19 inspired manner. But Hamid presents all of this in a curiously detached manner; I found it really hard to care about the two central characters, and their struggles with their new race.

I appreciate what the author was trying to do with this one, but it was a miss for me, save for some glorious spots of prose.

“Even though so many others were armed, he just had this sense that it was essential not to be seen as a threat, for to be seen as a threat, as dark as he was, was to risk one day being obliterated.”

I’m a new reader of Mohsin Hamid, and I am so so grateful that I picked this one up to read because Hamid has just gained a new loyal reader. The writing style was phenomenal. Really, truly. I don’t say that lightly. It may also not be everyone’s cup of tea, as some sentences run on for whole pages. But I personally found this to be exquisite and really drew me in to the anxiety and suffocating nature of the text and it’s topic.

This book was utterly genius. There is no other way that I can express myself about it. I started the book and immediately put it down because I’d picked it up tired, and I knew within a few paragraphs it deserved proper reading and required reflection throughout. I live for books like this. I love the reading experience of a book that makes you think and this book certainly does this.

Our main character, Anders, wakes up to find that his skin as turned from white to black. He rushes to the nearest mirror and sees for himself, that his skin had literally changed colour. He is no longer a white man. And he is not the only person who is experiencing this change. Societal chaos ensues and Anders has to go into hiding. Hamid calls into question of identity, of loss and of perception of self and perception that others have of your race. The heavy burden of colour.

As a mixed race person, who is white passing, I found this concept absolutely fascinating. I could not stop reading this book. Hamid does a fantastic job at highlighting as much as he can of the struggles that one could come up against, both internally and externally navigating the world, with this new found reality.

Hamid makes the reader question their own internal dilemmas when it comes to racism and what this means in the wider context of the world. This book taught me a valuable lesson, of an awareness of unconscious biased that is ingrained in the fabric of society, I felt challenged by this, in a good way. I was honestly floored by the complexity in which Hamid is able to write, considering how small a novel this book really is.

Incredibly superb, delivering revelation after revelation. This book is a must read.

Thank you to @Netgalley and Riverhead Books for gifting me an early copy in exchange for an honest review.

I find it astonishing that some reviewers have called this a racist book – they seem to have missed the point altogether. The book is a nuanced, insightful and timely exploration of racism in all its multiplicity, and a powerful indictment of it. One morning white man Anders wakes up to discover that he has turned “dark” overnight. We never discover how this transformation has come about but it soon becomes clear that Anders isn’t the only one. This metamorphosis is gradually spreading throughout the United States as more and more people change colour. What Anders has to do now is explore what this change means to him and to those around him, the impact it has on his own life and his relationships with those close to him, and how the loss of his “whiteness” changes how he feels about himself and the world around him. Thought-provoking indeed. Mohsin Hamid tells us that he wrote the book in response to his own experiences after 9/11. Up to then he had felt that he was “white enough” to enjoy the benefits of whiteness as an educated cosmopolitan man. Then it seemed that his “whiteness” had in part been revoked. Now he was seen as a brown man with a Muslim name, and therefore in some way suspect. His thoughtful take on the experience of changing colour raises many questions about prejudice and challenges why racism is still so prevalent in our society today. How others react to us can change how we think about ourselves. There’s a love story here as well, tenderness about family and relationships, and for such a short book it packs a powerful emotional punch, and I very much enjoyed it.