Quaker Universalist Conversations

Exit West and Immigrants

A Note on the novel by Mohsid Hamid

Exit West, by Mohsid Hamid Mohsid Hamid’s Exit West is a novel exploring the experience of refugees in this world, with a little magic in the mechanism of magic doors that permit refugees to engage with the real experiences of refugees in other countries and situations.

The theme is that we are all immigrants in our past and present. Even those who today have never traveled from their home town are immigrants in that their home town is not the home town of their memory. We are all immigrants in change. How we respond to that change is a part of the theme of this novel. It is not easy for some, but it is our universal human reality.

An interview with the author of Exit West is available on the PBS Newshour for March 16, 2017 at: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/videos/#210028.

Mohsin Hamid, author of "Exit West"

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