This is a book review presentation. Exit West is the novel written by Mohsin Hamid about immigration problems. Driven by a love story between two characters named as Saeed and Nadia Contact me on Facebook for any queries. https://www.facebook.com/aitazaz.qureshi.940

1. EXIT
WEST

2. Reviewed by:
Aitazaz Qureshi CIIT/FA19-BCE-050/ISB
Abdul Rehman CIIT/FA19-BCE-000/ISB
Usama Rehman CIIT/FA19-BCE-019/ISB

3. OUTLINE OF THE
PRESENTATION
Bibliographic Information
Author’s Background
Objective of the Book
Information about the Book
Genre
Important Characters
Why Should You Read This Book
Themes
Plot
Author’s Writing Style
Main Idea
Summary
Critical Analysis
Achievements

4. BIBLIOGRAPHIC
INFORMATION
Title : EXIT WEST
Author : Mohsin Hamid
Publisher : Riverhead Books
Place of Publication : New York
Year of Publication : 2017
Pages : 256
ISBN : 9780735212183

5. Author’s
Background
 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 Lahore. He
graduated from Princeton University 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).

6. Objective of the
Book
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
uncanny prescience the rise of
nativist paranoia and racial
intolerance, which have become
such features of life.

7. INFORMATION ABOUT THE BOOK
Type of Book:
It is a novel about
emigration.
Subject Matter:
A young couple, Saeed
and Nadia.
Special Features:
Discuss emigration and
refugee problems.
Author Purpose in
Writing the Book:
To tell the problems
during emigration.

8. GENRE
Novel
Political fiction

9. 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.

10. WHY
SHOULD
YOU READ
THIS BOOK?
Mysterious.
Shows the struggles that refugees face.
Interesting point of view..
Descriptive language.
Vivid imagery.
Captivating and inspiring story that is relevant to
events today.
An unconventional love story.

11. THEMES
Romance
Devastating
effects of war
Running away
from war
Refugee’s
Settlements

12. PLOT
o Two people live in a war-ravaged
country and are trying to find an
escape.
o Their relationship is influenced by their
displacement.
o Each person depends on the other.
o They travel to different places through
“magical” door.

13. Author’s Writing Style
Uses run-on sentences with
many commas.
Uses key words to
emphasize moments of
main point.
Uses no quotation marks
even when the characters
are talking.
Wrote this novel in the 3rd
person and focused on
Saeed and Nadia but also
included other refugee
stories.

14. 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.
EXIT WEST explores various themes of migration as it follows
the fictional Saeed and Nadia who flee a country on the brink
civil war and journey through Europe and North America.

15. Summary
 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.
 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.

16. Summary
 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
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.

17. Analysis
 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
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.

18. Analysis
 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
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.

19. Achievements
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.
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.

20. Achievements
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 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.

21. THANKS FOR YOUR TIME