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Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2017.
An extraordinary story of love and hope from the bestselling, Man Booker-shortlisted author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist.
In a city swollen by refugees but still mostly at peace, or at least not yet openly at war, Saeed and Nadia lock eyes across their classroom. After a while, they talk, he makes her smile and they start to fall in love. They try not to notice the sound of bombs getting closer every night, the radio announcing new laws, the curfews and the public executions.
Eventually the problem is too big to ignore: it’s not safe for Nadia to live alone and she must move in with Saeed, even though they are not married, and that too is a problem. Meanwhile, rumours are spreading of strange black doors in secret places across the city, doors that lead to London or San Francisco, Greece or Dubai. One day soon the time will come for Nadia and Saeed to seek out one such door, joining the great outpouring of those fleeing a collapsing city, hoping against hope, looking for their place in the world.
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Exit West Synopsis
One of The New York Times's 100 Best Books of the 21st Century
FINALIST FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE & WINNER OF THE L.A. TIMES BOOK PRIZE FOR FICTION and THE ASPEN WORDS LITERARY PRIZE
"It was as if Hamid knew what was going to happen to America and the world, and gave us a road map to our future… At once terrifying and … oddly hopeful." -Ayelet Waldman, The New York Times Book Review
"Moving, audacious, and indelibly human." -Entertainment Weekly, "A" rating
The New York Times bestselling novel: an astonishingly visionary love story that imagines the forces that drive ordinary people from their homes into the uncertain embrace of new lands, from the author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist and the forthcoming The Last White Man.
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 remarkable 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.
About This Edition
Mohsin Hamid Press Reviews
Writing in spare, crystalline prose, Hamid conveys the experience of living in a city under siege with sharp, stabbing immediacy Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
Immediately canonical New Yorker
As with the very best literature, its crystalline readability fast eclipses its topicality Mail on Sunday
Publisher's description. In an unnamed city swollen by refugees but not yet at war, two young people meet and fall in love. They pretend not to hear the sound of bombs getting closer every night. But one day soon they will have to escape this place, running for their lives, searching for their place in the world. Penguin
Impressive... Exit West confirms Hamid's reputation as a brilliant ventriloquist who is deeply engaged with the most pressing issues of our time -- Andrew Motion (Book of the Week) Guardian
Powerful... Hamid unfolds the disintegration of civic life and the couple's poignant intimacy with vivid, economical strokes. Hamid is the master of the illuminating metaphor Sunday Times
Wry [and] intelligent... Part pared-down romance, part 21st-century fable for a world of porous borders, Exit West is a thought experiment that pivots on the crucial figure of this century: the migrant Financial Times
A subtle and moving examination of how human relationships endure and falter under unimaginable pressures. Exit West is an instant classic GQ
Breathlessly relevant... Hamid's book could hardly be more timely; it's addictively readable and brilliantly written to boot Mail on Sunday
About Mohsin Hamid
Mohsin Hamid grew up in Lahore, attended Princeton University and Harvard Law School and worked for several years as a management consultant in New York. His first novel, Moth Smoke, was published in ten languages, won a Betty Trask Award, and was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award. His essays and journalism have appeared in Time, the New York Times and the Guardian, among others. Mohsin Hamid currently lives, works and writes in London.
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