WINNER OF THE 2018 LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE FOR FICTION and THE ASPEN WORDS LITERARY PRIZE
FINALIST FOR THE DAYTON LITERARY PEACE PRIZE TEN BEST BOOKS OF 2017 NEW YORK TIMES BOOK
REVIEW "A breathtaking novel…[that] arrives at an urgent time." -NPR "It was as if Hamid
knew what was going to happen to America and the world and gave us a road map to our future…
At once terrifying and … oddly hopeful." -Ayelet Waldman The New York Times Book Review
"Moving audacious and indelibly human." -Entertainment Weekly "A" rating A New York Times
bestseller the astonishingly visionary love story that imagines the forces that drive ordinary
people from their homes into the uncertain embrace of new lands. 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. . . . Exit West follows these remarkable
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 that is both
completely of our time and for all time.
