by Mohsin Hamid
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Just released: March 7, 2017
Publisher: Riverhead Books
Genre: Literary
Hardback: 240 pages
Rating: 4
First sentence(s):
In a city swollen by refugees out still mostly at peace, or at least not yet openly at war, a young man met a young woman in a classroom and did not speak to her.
In a country teetering on the brink of civil war, two young people meet—sensual, fiercely independent Nadia and gentle, restrained Saeed. They embark on a furtive love affair and are soon cloistered in a premature intimacy by the unrest roiling their city. When it explodes, turning familiar streets into a patchwork of checkpoints and bomb blasts, they begin to hear whispers about doors—doors that can whisk people far away, if perilously and for a price. As the violence escalates, Nadia and Saeed decide that they no longer have a choice. Leaving their homeland and their old lives behind, they find a door and step through.
Exit West follows these characters as they emerge into an alien and uncertain future, struggling to hold on to each other, to their past, to the very sense of who they are. Profoundly intimate and powerfully inventive, it tells an unforgettable story of love, loyalty, and courage that is both completely of our time and for all time.
My two-bits:
Speaks to the plight of migration due to circumstances. Adjustments and homesickness are explored.
A love story with its uncertainty and ups and downs parallels the turbulence involved in the various moves.
AND the added element of travel via doors adds an interesting take.
Got me thinking of what people consider "home".
