In talk at Conn College, ‘Exit West’ author reflects on his novel and migration
Author Mohsin Hamid spoke about his bestselling book “Exit West,” touching on everything from storyline specifics to his notion that all human beings are refugees, Wednesday in Connecticut College’s Palmer Auditorium.
The session was the culmination of this year’s One Book One Region of Eastern Connecticut program. For 16 years, One Book One Region has selected one book that it encourages people in the area to read and talk about. It aims “to bring community members and the college community together to discuss ideas, broaden appreciation of reading and break down barriers among people.”
This year’s choice, “Exit West,” was a bestseller that made many “best of 2017” lists, including those from The New York Times, NPR — and former president Barack Obama. It was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize.
Conn College President Katherine Bergeron noted during Wednesday’s program that “Exit West” is not easy to categorize. It’s about humanity and migration, and, she said, “It’s a story about young people in love; a grim portrait of civil war; a critique of globalization and Western indifference; a tale of three cities and the refugees of the future; an argument for human resilience; and a meditation on leaving home.”
In “Exit West,” a young couple living in an unnamed city meet and begin a romance. When war breaks out, they flee through magical doors that allow refugees to move from one place to another.
In a nod to those mysterious portals, Conn College set up a few doors decoratively on the Palmer Auditorium stage, which Hamid mentioned appreciatively.
“Exit West” deals with migration, and as part of the discussion moderated by Marie Ostby, assistant professor of English at Conn College, Hamid spoke about his personal migrations. He was born in Lahore, Pakistan, but lived in California from ages 3 to 9, while his father was getting his PhD at Stanford. They returned to Pakistan, but then Hamid attended college in America, earning his bachelor’s degree from Princeton University in 1993 and his law degree from Harvard Law School in 1997. He worked in New York City for a management consulting firm and then moved to London. About nine years ago, he and his wife moved their family back to Pakistan.
Consequently, Hamid noted, “Defining myself as one thing has become im-
possible. I think, for a lot of my life, I was a chameleon. … It was only later that I became comfortable being this strange hybrid creature.”
He eventually realized that, just as he had felt different, everybody feels a bit different in their own way, and identity is a multifaceted thing.
Ostby brought up the idea of migration as a metaphor for change in “Exit West” and noted two quotes from Hamid's books: “We are all refugees from our childhood” and “We are all migrants of time.”
Hamid said that change is inevitable for human beings. Time moves on, and we lose things we love.
“We go through life with a powerful sadness about these times that have gone,” he said, adding that we are refugees from our childhood, our college years, our 20s, and so on.
“I think it's useful to understand that migration is not just a geographical phenomenon. Migration is a temporal phenomenon. In other words, migration is something to experience across time as well as across space. And every human being is a migrant across time,” he said. “The experience of that migration brings with it the sorrow of migration. In that sense, we're all refugees.”
He said that, because we don't allow ourselves to acknowledge the degree to which that saddens or hurts us, it's difficult for us to be open to the sorrow and suffering of refugees because their sorrow is, in a way, an echo of our own.
He sees nativism and xenophobia as a resistance to that sense of transience in a person's own life. It's falling victim to the illusion of permanence, the idea that things can be like they were.
The recognition of transience can be frightening and sad, but there is also the potential for it to be beautiful and hopeful, he said.
As for physical migration, Hamid said that it is human nature to move; people have always moved. And it's important for us to have visions of the future that are both plausible and desirable.
At the start of Wednesday's discussion, Bergeron honored One Book One Region founder Betty Anne Reiter, who will retire as director of Groton Public Library at the end of October. Bergeron praised, among other qualities, Reiter's creativity and her efforts to promote literacy across southeastern Connecticut. As a token of gratitude, Bergeron gave Reiter a Presidential Citation.