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Exit West
Created @September 26, 2023 10:10 PM

Class Comparative Literature

Type Lecture

Reviewed

Mohsin Hamid: Global democracy

Vision of migration that isn't a disaster, humane, and even inspiring

Freedom of movement is decided by nation-state > refusing migrants to entry

is infringing on their rights to migrate

2016 > many people fleeing to europe from Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan

Written before Trump and Brexit

Predicting nativists and racial intolerance

Migrants vs nativists

On language

English> “official language” of Pakistan but its limited to a small section of

society

the official language according to the constitution of Pakistan is Urdu

Anglo-American press reviews it enthusiastically, but in Pakistan it’s not as

enthusiastically responded

Pakistani academics do not really appreciate his novel >doesn’t give a good
view on Pakistan > because he writes it in English (so Pakistanis think it’s
written for the westerners)

Exit West 1
 World Literature

Books that travel, beyond their country of origin (Damrosch)

All literature were born a national literature, and then they circulate, but they
keep their national origin.

1) “Read as literature” in its home culture

2) Circulate beyond the home culture

What is the ‘home culture’ of Exit West?

There’s no focus on a single culture.

How does a work enter world literature if the marks of its national literature
have been deliberately erased

Hamid: “an immigrant everywhere, even in Lahore”

>Social Class privilege - enables him to live an itinerant life by choice

Postcolonial literature?

Hamid was born in Pakistan> former British colony

He said that the book belongs to a “Post-Colonial generation”

Conclusion: the concept of world literature is not sufficient to explain Exit West.
Perhaps it was born directly into world literature, or born from liminality

Hamid strips the city of most of its social, cultural, and geographical
specificities (censorship?)

The unnamed city have features that almost every city has (burger, chinese
restaurant)

Exit West 2
 We don’t know what the militants want

In Pakistan, there is a prohibition on saying stuff about Pakistan or the religion

Opportunity for the readers to relocalise the unnamed city

Namelessness:

act of respect

allegory

censorship

the readers to construct the story from their own perspective

Narrative strategies:

Liminality

realistic and matter of fact, but also fantastical (the door: dark, complete
darkness)
Hamid: mirrors our current technological reality. He was less interested in the
journey on how you get from place to place.

Simultaneity

different situations, power imbalance, experienced by people at different place but

happens at the same time
Multi strand narration to narrate experience of globalisation (Beecroft)

Mykonos (Greece)

London

Marin/Marine (San Francisco)

Global south vs London, San Francisco, Mykonos

Exit West 3
 Mykonos

Greek Island, tourist spot.

Islands themselves are liminal spaces

Tiny islands overflown by migrants

Nadia: chose to still wear the robe to send a signal

Saeed: happy too meet his acquiantance from his home country “like two
leaves blow from the same tree by a hurricane”

London

Specific geographical terms. (neighbouring with hyde parks, kensington

gardens, etc)

technology (TV) as a way to feel normal, as they havent had access to

electronics for a long time

Mass migration disrupts of the social hierarchies and geography

More migrants than natives (legal residents)

Dark London vs Light London. No electricty, no power, no water > whereas in

light london people has all of those, free to journey about, trains running but
skip the stops near Nadia and Saeed

‘Britain has already split’

The Nigerian House

Saeed vs Nadia: Nadia making herself at home by taking shower, Saeed

joins his fellow countrymen and prayed. Both shows how they feel
‘human’ while being a migrant. (i guess it also flips gender stereotype
cuz usually women look for community?, women are also more likened
to cleanliness)

On the other hand, you can also relate that to ‘women staying at home
(with the kids)’

Exit West 4
 Saeed was willing to sacrifice their room to live with his fellow
countrymen. Meanwhile Nadia wants to integrate with the Nigerians—
whom, turns out to not be all ‘fully nigerians’

“her english was like theirs, one among many”

Saeed was the middleman between the foreman and the workers

The idea of being found/recorded — nadia ‘found a picture of herself’

on the news. (Simultaneity)

Nativist Extrimist: “To reclaim Britain for Britain” (132)

Solution is found, neighbours are built (London Halo)

Nadia and Saeed on their different perspectives of belonging “he was

drawn to people from their country” vs “nadia keeps wearing her black
robe, not praying, not speaking their language”

Marin/Marine(?)

There were no ‘natives’ (native americans)

Nativeness is a relative matter (196) > their parents or their parents have been
born on this strip of land

Migration in Marin: The apocalypse have arrived yet it was not apocalyptic..
plausible desirable futures emerge (216)

Gender and sexuality

Nadia and the greek woman in Mykonos

Saeed feeling emasculated in the Nigerian house (when he was confronted by

the Nigerian woman) (hes also not involved in the community discussions;
nadia does)

Nadia and the cook at Marine

Ethical questions

Exit West 5
 Is Hamid entitled to talk about migration?

Is Hamid packaging the refugee exp for western readers?

Does Hamid as a privileged person have the rights to talk abt refugee
struggles?

Is the doors as a literary device ethical? (avoiding the possibly life threatening
journey)> avoiding turning suffering into the migration

Hamid makes it possible for the readers to be involved

Emphatises to not only refugees but also the ‘’’’natives’’’’’

Exit West 6