Thursday, June 2, 2022

Exit West

In 2017, Mohsin Hamid published Exit West as a literary response to the 2015 migrant crisis. The migrant crisis of 2015 was a period when a large number of refugees arrived in Europe and sought asylum from the wars and crises in their home countries. His book is written in the lyrical style of prose and tells the story of a fierce young couple that has to leave their homeland behind them as they escape war in their country and seek asylum in Europe. In his novel, Hamid describes the migrant experience while focusing on that of two individuals, Nadia and Saed, as they assimilate into societies foreign to their own, exploring their sense of identity and self. Nadia is an independant and rebellious woman who accepts and embraces her migration from her homeland as a chance to create a new life for herself. Saeed, however, is an educated and romantic young man who works hard to adapt to the migrant lifestyle that forces him to unite his love for family and his cultural upbringing with his new life as an alienated individual forced to leave his home. Nadia and Saeed both experience periods of longing for the comfort of their past but each understand the need to create their own “home away from home” as a response to reclaiming their identity. 

I read this book for a school project, my final high school English paper. 

While I didn't exactly enjoy the book, I didn't "not like it" either. It's just probably something I won't read again. 

3/5 

Here are some quotes I liked

"To love is to enter into the inevitability of one day not being able to protect what is most valuable to you." 

"When we migrate, we murder from our lives those we leave behind." 

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