Kevein Books and Reviews

Those who have finished ‘Exit West’ by Mohsin Hamid may feel that this book is half-migrant literature, half-globalist. The author is not only interested in revealing how the human lives are changing by migration, but by how constant migration in-and-of itself leads to the blurring of location and nation-state construction. This assumption is evident by the constant interruptions in the lives of Nadia and Saeed. Can there be re-imagination of global identities in a denationalizing world vision? Somehow this novel could not convince this peculiarity. May be the novel is built too much on concepts and not enough on character. Neither of the two characters seem to function or think outside of their movements and Hamid's occasional insights. Also, the lack of specificity of location. For a book with so many random places, readers were made to feel that they have to detach from one place to place, in a sense a backdrop is lost. The book sounds a piece of abstract writing. All ...