Exit West

"We are all migrants through time"

The first book on my 2018 reading journey is the excellent novel Exit West by Pakistani author Mohsin Hamid. The novel focuses on a couple who falls in love in an unnamed city under siege by religious fundamentalists become migrants.  Obviously, this is a gross simplification of the novel but this post is not a summary but a reaction piece.

I found this book to be filled with little snippets of fantastic lines that made me stop and pause.  The idea of migration and our moral responsibility to migration is inescapable in today's world.  However, this book sheds a personalized humanity on it. The idea that we are all somehow migrants and we can live in the same town and one-day wakeup and the world would be unrecognizable is a strong subplot of this novel.  As an educator, I'm amazed at how we continue to teach students for a world that doesn't exist. A world of the past.

But getting back on track, one of the most fascinating pieces of the novel were the concepts of "the doors".  In this touch of magical realism, the novel has doors open up for migrants and they can suddenly be transported millions of miles away.  So our protagonist, Saeed, and Nadia begin a trip gradually going west but the focus of the book is not on the journey but rather on the destination, and on what happens next.  What happens when you've migrated, what decisions led you there? What are you leaving behind?

A novel that has strong undertones of prayer, family, modernization, identity, all force the reader to stop and ponder.  It is no surprise this novel was critically acclaimed, in its simple prose Hosin is able to transport the reader through time and space.  This is the kind of book that sticks with you and slowly creeps into your subconscious slowly shifting the paradigm through which you view the world. 

I am only briefly touching the surface the novel. I highly recommend it. I am hoping to expand on my thoughts later. It is an excellent read, well worth it.