Exit West
"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. [This book] follows the couple 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."--From regular print book.
Where Exit West keeps showing up
One of our editors' lists features this novel.
What you might want to know about Exit West
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
In an unnamed city sliding toward civil war, two young people, Saeed and Nadia, fall in love. As the city collapses, rumored doors begin opening to other countries, and they step through one of them together.
Yes. Exit West was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2017 and won the LA Times Book Prize for Fiction. It was named one of the best books of the year by The New York Times, Washington Post, and many others.
Exit West is fictional but draws on the real refugee crises of the 2010s. Mohsin Hamid uses magical-realist doors as a metaphor for migration. The unnamed origin city is implied to be in the Muslim world but is intentionally generalized.
Exit West was written by Mohsin Hamid, published in 2017 by Perfection Learning Corporation.
Exit West is 231 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Exit West takes most readers 3 to 5 hours to finish.
Exit West is a standalone novel by Mohsin Hamid, not part of a series.
Exit West is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
