The Reluctant Fundamentalist

Changez is both the novel’s narrator and its main protagonist. He is a bearded Pakistani man from Lahore who studied, worked and lived in the United States both before and after the 9/11 attacks. He graduated at the top of his class at Princeton, and was awarded a coveted position at a prestigious valuation firm called Underwood Samson. Though Changez did not come from a poor family in Lahore—they still carried the social prestige of old money—his family couldn’t afford to send him to Princeton and so Changez had to rely on financial aid and working three off-campus jobs to make ends meet. This set him apart from his peers. Having been raised as a member of Lahore’s wealthy elite also meant that Changez had the sophistication and manners of the wealthy, traits that constantly set him apart from many of his “new money” classmates as well. These characteristics prove important for Changez, in that they allow him to succeed in the high-stakes world of valuation with Underwood Samson, where the general manager who hired him, Jim, takes an interest in Changez because of their shared experience of marginalization.

Changez also begins courting Erica, a classmate of his at Princeton, whom he meets while on vacation in Greece.