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.
