Exit West

Exit West by Mohsin Hamid

I chose to listen to this book on Audible.  I found it less compelling and able to hold my concentration than other recent audio reads.  Elmet for example, and The Sound of One Hand Clapping.

This is the second novel by this author that I have read and for me does not measure up to the standard of that best seller.  The Reluctant Fundamentalist, told the story of a Pakistani man who decides to leave his high-flying life in America after a failed love affair and the terrorist attacks of 9/11. It was published in 2007 and became a million-copy international best seller, reaching No.4 on the New York Times Best Seller list. The novel was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, won several awards including the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and the Asian American Literary Award, and was translated into over 25 languages. The Guardian selected it as one of the books that defined the decade.

Of Exit West the Amazon review states:  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.

The Guardian review attempts to analyse the structure of the book, the mixing of genre whilst saying very little about the story the narrative attempts to tell.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/mar/12/exit-west-mohsin-hamid-review-refugee-crisis

Clearly Exit West has found favour as a potential prize winner:

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2017 MAN BOOKER PRIZE

FINALIST FOR THE 2017 KIRKUS PRIZE

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BROOKLYN PUBLIC LIBRARY AWARD

SHORTLISTED FOR THE NEUSTADT INTERNATIONAL PRIZE FOR LITERATURE