At a cafe table in Lahore, a Pakistani man converses with a stranger. As dusk deepens to dark, he begins the tale that has brought him to this fateful meeting...Among the brightest and best of his graduating class at Princeton, Changez is snapped up by an elite firm and thrives on New York and the intensity of his work. And his infatuation with fragile Erica promises entree into Manhattan society on the exalted footing his own family once held back in Lahore. For a time, it seems as though nothing will stand in the way of Changez's meteoric rise to personal and professional success: the fulfillment of the immigrant's dream. But in the wake of September 11, he finds his position in the city he loves suddenly overturned, and his budding relationship with Erica eclipsed by the reawakened ghosts of her past. And Changez's own identity is in seismic shift as well, unearthing allegiances more fundamental than money, power, and perhaps even love.

莫欣·哈米德（1971— ），齣生於巴基斯坦第二大城市拉閤爾，後進入美國普林斯頓大學主修公共與國際事務，畢業後入哈佛大學法學院深造，一九九七年獲得法律博士學位。之後在紐約曼哈頓的財務管理公司擔任管理顧問。現居倫敦。

二○○○年齣版處女作《蛾煙》（Moth Smoke），獲得貝蒂·特拉斯剋奬並入圍美國筆會海明威文學奬，被《紐約時報》選為年度好書。二○○七年齣版《拉閤爾茶館的陌生人》，入圍布剋奬最終決選。