The withholding of names gives the characters archetypal resonance. Though all the characters are clearly individuals with particular traits and quirks, they uniformly lack names. His early encounters with her ultimately change their lives.

The girl comes from a troubled family and isn't afraid to use her looks, her only viable resource as a hair salon assistant, in order to 'escape from her family' and rise in society. His journey parallels that of a female character he refers to as 'the pretty girl.' Her low social status in life, her work ethic and her subsequent rise in society parallel his. We see him rise through the ranks despite his low status, lose his parents and make the endless compromises required in order to become 'filthy rich' and in a sense, lose himself. As a poor boy transplanted from the rural to the urban world, a kind of immigrant in his own country, he manages through hard work to graduate from a public school and enter university. The third novel by Hamid, a Pakistani writer, follows the life of a precocious unnamed character, starting from his roots in a rural village, where he only half succeeds at hiding his intelligence at school, much to the displeasure of his math teacher, to his family's move to the city, which stirs in him a sense of wonder.

The power of this astounding book, however, doesn't lie primarily in its subject matter but in the intelligence and fearless stylistic choices of the narrative. Mohsin Hamid's novel 'How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia' eloquently captures the energy, potential and problems of a rising Asia.

How to get filthy rich in asia