In his review in the Financial Times of Mohsin Hamid's new novel, How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia, Amit Chaudhuri suggests:
If a novelist in India is asked, "Are you writing a new novel ?" and the answer is "Yes", the next question inevitably is, "Is it fiction or non-fiction ?" The interrogator is being polite, not provocative; "fiction", like the "novel", is a buzzword in the globalised world, and can be used in conversation without reference to its meaning, as part of a larger conversation about advancement.What curious times we live in.