EXIT WEST

Reviewed by:

Aitazaz Qureshi CIIT/FA19-BCE-050/ISB

Abdul Rehman CIIT/FA19-BCE-029/ISB

Usama Rehman CIIT/FA19-BCE-020/ISB

Outline of the Presentation
 Bibliographic Information
 Achievements
 Author’s Background
 Author’s Writing Style
 Objective of the Book
 Genre
 Information about the Book
 Important Characters
 Themes
 Summary
 Analysis
 Critical Comments
 Title : EXIT WEST
Author : Mohsin Hamid
Publisher : Penguin Production House
BIBLIOGRAPHIC
Place of Publication : New York
INFORMATION
Year of Publication : 2017
Pages : 229
ISBN : 9780735212183
 Upon release, Exit West was met with very
solid reviews. On Amazon, it has a very
respectable rating of 4 out of 5 stars.

On book review aggregator site

Goodreads.com, it holds a solid albeit
unspectacular rating of 3.81 out of 5 stars.

Achievements
Omar El Akkad of The Globe and Mail
called it ""a masterpiece of humanity and
restraint.“

It was selected for the 2017 Man Booker

prize shortlist.
 In 2017, former President Barack Obama called
the novel one of the best he had read that
year.

The New York Times also named it one of the ten

Achievements best books of 2017.

In August 2017 it was announced that the Russo

Brothers had purchased the rights to Exit West
with the intention of producing the novel into a
movie with Morten Tyldum to direct.
  Mohsin Hamid (born in 1971 in Lahore,
Pakistan) is a Pakistani-British novelist and
essayist who has been internationally recognized
for his use of innovative storytelling techniques
and his depiction of contemporary Pakistan.
Hamid spent part of his childhood in the United
States before moving back with his family to
Author’s Lahore. He graduated from Princeton University
Background in 1993 and from Harvard Law School in 1997.
 He wrote Moth Smoke (2000), The Reluctant
Fundamentalist (2007), How to Get Filthy Rich in
Rising Asia (2013) and his fourth novel was Exit
West (2017).
Author’s Writing Style

Uses key words to

Uses run-on sentences
emphasize moments of
with many commas.
main point.

Wrote this novel in the 3rd

Uses no quotation marks person and focused on
even when the Saeed and Nadia but
characters are talking. also included other
refugee stories.
The novel was in part a response
to the migrant crisis that was
unfolding in various corners of the
world as Hamid was writing, but
it also predicted with most
Objective of the
uncanny prescience the rise of Book
nativist paranoia and racial
intolerance, which have become
such features of life.
 Novel

GENRE

Political fiction
 INFORMATION ABOUT THE BOOK

Type of Book: Subject Matter: Special Features: Author Purpose in

Writing the Book:
It is a novel about A young couple, Saeed Discuss emigration and To tell the problems
emigration. and Nadia. refugee problems. during emigration.
IMPORTANT CHARACTERS

Saeed: Saeed lives in a country at the brink of destruction. Religious

militants are trying to take over the government and the once peaceful
country is now in delirium. He lives in a chaotic part of the country. He
works with selling advertisement. Saeed is not very religious, but he finds
praying important as it connects him with his maker.

Nadia: Nadia is a strong-minded woman. She lives in the same country as

Saeed, and they fall in love after Saeed ask her out on a date during the
business class they have together in the evenings. She is not religious at all
but she decides to wear the most religious garments she can find.
 Devastating
Romance
effects of war

THEMES
Running away Refugee’s
from war Settlements
  In the unnamed city Saeed and Nadia find themselves
in a classroom together. They fall in love despite their
differences. Saeed lives at home with his parents and
Nadia choose to live alone. The city is full of refugees.
By time things get worst in this city. The city is
getting closer and closer to war. Saeed’s mother is shot
and now it is unsafe for Nadia to live alone, so she
starts living with Saeed and his father.
Summary
 The war breaks out and the government has no
control over the city now. Violence fights and death
has become a part of everyday life.
 Whispers about some magical doors starts spreading
in the town. These magical doors work as a portal and
leads to different country (different world for the
refugees). Doors are heavily guarded by militants.
  Saeed and Nadia have to take chance. They manage to
bribe their way through a door, leaving behind Saeed's
father who does not wish to be a burden to them.
 First, they get to Mykonos. The place is filled with
refugees just like them. A young Greek girl is able to
get Nadia and Saeed through another door. This door
leads them to London. In London the relation between
refugees and London citizens are becoming worse by
Summary the minute. The refugees are forced into Ghettos
(Ghettos is basically dark London) .
 The city decides to build a better relationship with the
refugees and put them to work. Nadia and Saeed are
not so close anymore. They walk through another
door which takes them to California.
 Here the two of them split up and live their own lives.
After fifty years Saeed and Nadia meet in their home
country.
  Three doors take the refugees from their war-torn
home through Greece and England and totally
West to California.
 This novel is basically about the political strife and
horrors of war. The novelist leaves the love story
lurking in the background as if to ask the reader
whether they will take the story seriously, or
Analysis whether they will see the drama of two star-
crossed lovers as more inherently powerful than the
absolute carnage of death and despair. Both main
characters experience the death of their family.
They are separated from their home, driven away
by the certainty of violent death or even torture.
The story is not a love story at all.
  When they go through doors they depend on other
people for survival; they watch each other’s backs,
and then in Mykonos, a young Greek girl with a
heart for refugees helps to get them into London.
They depend on hospitality in London, but
eventually, the refugee communities become
Analysis overwhelming and they find themselves in unsafe
Ghettos with minimal food and electricity..
 They want to find another door to get away from
Ghettos and by the time they end up in California,
they walk away from each other to try and find
some semblance of a life on their own.
 Mysterious.

Shows the struggles that refugees face.

Interesting point of view..

WHY Descriptive language.

SHOULD
Vivid imagery.
YOU READ
THIS Captivating and inspiring story that is relevant
NOVEL? to events today.

An unconventional love story.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS
THANKS FOR YOUR TIME
 EXIT WEST explores various themes of migration as
it follows the fictional Saeed and Nadia who flee a
country on the brink of civil war and journey
through Europe and North America.

MAIN IDEA
EXIT WEST follows these characters 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. Profoundly intimate and
powerfully inventive, it tells an unforgettable story
of love, loyalty, and courage.
 o Two people live in a war-ravaged
country and are trying to find an
escape.
o Their relationship is influenced by
PLOT their displacement.
o Each person depends on the other.
o They travel to different places
through “magical” door.
 Bibliographic Information
Author’s Background
Objective of the Book
Information about the Book
Genre
Important Characters
Themes
OUTLINE OF Plot
THE
Summary
PRESENTATION
Analysis

Achievements

Why should you read this Novel