I first reviewed this book back in 2017. As we are now celebrating West Asian Heritage month, I thought it an apt time to give this review another airing. It is largely how it appeared at the time but I have updated it very slightly to reflect the new cover and so on.
***
An extraordinary story of love and hope from the bestselling, Man Booker-shortlisted author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist.
This is Nadia. She is fiercely independent with an excellent sense of humour and a love of smoking alone on her balcony late at night.
This is Saeed. He is sweet and shy and kind to strangers. He also has a balcony but he uses his for star-gazing.
This is their story: a love story, but also a story about how we live now and how we might live tomorrow. Saeed and Nadia are falling in love, and their city is falling apart. Here is a world in crisis and two human beings travelling through it.
Exit West is a heartfelt and radical act of hope - a novel to restore your faith in humanity and in the power of imagination.
***
This is a contemporary novel with both significance and relevance for modern times. Told from the perspective of refugees it provides an opportunity for the reader to understand the issues facing people who find themselves a long way from the place they call home and who frequently arrive in destinations where they are not made welcome.
The magical realism in this book is used to great effect and is designed to correspond with the feeling of some native born residents that refugees seem to arrive suddenly and from nowhere. This is an extremely clever device and very much enhances the main issues of the story.
However, the main thing that this book does is to allow the reader to empathise with the refugees and which makes this an extremely relevant book in today's current climate. We are able to understand the plight of refugees amidst our own current political and sociological situation.
This is a profound text which influences the reader and has the potential to make us understand how to be better people both as individuals and communities. This book deserves the accolades it has received and I would not be surprised if this does not appear on the school syllabus as there is so much to learn from it.
It is a slim volume with a massive significance and I encourage everyone to read this as I am sure that you will get as much from reading it as I have.
ISBN: 978 0241979068
Publisher: Viking UK
Formats: e-book, audio, hardback and paperback
No. of Pages: 240 (paperback)
About the Author:
Mohsin Hamid is the author of five novels, including the international bestsellers Exit West and The Reluctant Fundamentalist, both of which were shortlisted for the Booker Prize, as well as Moth Smoke, How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia, and his most recent, The Last White Man. His books have been translated into over forty languages, adapted for film, and awarded numerous prizes.
He speaks and writes on topics ranging from literature, culture, and the arts to migration, technology, business, and politics. His essay collection, Discontent and Its Civilizations, brings together some of his writings for the New York Times, the Guardian, the Financial Times, the New York Review of Books, and other publications.
Mohsin Hamid studied international relations at Princeton and law at Harvard, and worked as a management consultant. He has spent about half his life in Lahore, where he was born, and much of the rest in London, New York, and California.
(author media courtesy of the author's website https://www.mohsinhamid.com/home.html)
(all opinions are my own)
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