Exit West

Mohsin Hamid writes in a clipped, declarative style. It's a matter of fact story of an unnamed place (loosely based on Lahore where Hamid was writing at the time) and the burgeoning love between Saeed and Nadia. Things are going from bad to worse in the city they live in. A civil war is breaking out and when doors open to other places they take a chance and slip through together.

The doors of Exit West are a wonderful bit of magical realism that keeps Hamid from getting mired in the narrative so often associated with migrants and their crossing of borders, walking long distances over a barren landscape or freezing in a leaky inflatable. It let's him talk about how Saeed and Nadia's lives change in new worlds.

Saeed clings to the home he left behind while Nadia reaches for the promise of the new. In an interview Hamid talks about the short vignettes interspersed throughout that show we're all migrants in a sense, even if it's migrants through time. That the worlds we grew up in change around us even if we never leave our childhood neighbourhood. A beautiful story well rendered.