THE LAST WHITE MAN OF HAMID

“One morning Anders, a white man, woke up to find he had turned a deep and undeniable brown …”. Thus starts Mohsin Hamid’s The Last White Man (2022). He portrays a dark brown/white man who is going through nightmarish days just after his metamorphosis. This sudden metamorphosis thrusts Anders into a period of self-imposed isolation, during which he witnesses widespread similar transformations, often accompanied by societal upheaval and tragic events. The novel swiftly exposes the fragility of societal morality and intimate relationships under duress, foregrounding an eternal return of racism and discrimination, particularly resonant with post-9/11 xenophobia. This paper argues that Hamid’s novel serves as a powerful metaphorical analogy for the xenophobic reflections of the 21st century, drawing parallels with contemporary crises such as the Refugee Crisis, Black Lives Matter, and the COVID-19 pandemic. By echoing Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis, Hamid interrogates the problematized ‘Otherness’ and the privileged status of ‘whiteness.’ Ultimately, this analysis will explore how The Last White Man illuminates the resurfacing of long-dormant xenophobia amidst polarizing national definitions, the assertion of Global North superiority, pandemic-related conspiracy theories, and persistent cultural prejudices.