{"id":43514,"date":"2019-10-14T10:52:57","date_gmt":"2019-10-14T14:52:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/?p=43514"},"modified":"2019-11-01T08:31:40","modified_gmt":"2019-11-01T12:31:40","slug":"common-read-selection-exit-west-at-once-a-love-story-a-fable-and-a-chilling-reflection-on-displacement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2019\/common-read-selection-exit-west-at-once-a-love-story-a-fable-and-a-chilling-reflection-on-displacement\/","title":{"rendered":"Common Read selection Exit West \u2018at once a love story, a fable, and a chilling reflection\u2019 on displacement"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Eastern Mennonite University Common Read for the 2019-20 academic year is the widely acclaimed Man Booker Prize finalist and bestselling novel Exit West<\/em> by Mohsin Hamid (Riverhead, 2017).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are serious about equipping students to be leaders who build bridges in a complex world, and this means we are eager to talk about immigration policy and religious diversity, and to hear the human stories of those impacted by conflict,\u201d said Kirsten Beachy<\/strong><\/a>, professor of English and chair of the Intellectual Life Committee, which selects the Common Read. \u201cExit West<\/em> allows readers to connect in a deeply personal way to the displaced protagonists of the story, while using magical realism to give us some distance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The novel, Hamid\u2019s fourth, shows the effects of geography on life through a love story based in reality but with a magical twist: doorways through which refugees can be transported to different places. \u201cThe result is a novel that is personal, not pedantic, an intimate human story about an experience shared by countless people of the world, one that most Americans just witness on television,\u201d wrote Chris Schluep of The Amazon Book Review<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is \u201cat once a love story, a fable, and a chilling reflection on what it means to be displaced, unable to return home and unwelcome anywhere else,\u201d wrote NPR\u2019s Michael Schaub<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

EMU\u2019s Common Read establishes common ground for discussion in classrooms and other venues. This year, over 200 students in classes ranging from first-year writing to a graduate career counseling course will receive copies of the book, which Beachy said can be a starting point for complex discussions of trauma, border policy and international relations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hamid\u2019s other writings have also been well received. Moth Smoke<\/em> (Farrar Straus & Giroux, 2000) won a Betty Trask Award and was a PEN\/Hemingway Award finalist and New York Times <\/em>Notable Book of the Year. The Reluctant Fundamentalist <\/em>(Harvest Books, 2008) was a Man Booker Prize finalist, and was made into a movie. And his How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia: A Novel<\/em> (Riverhead, 2013), written in second person, was described by TIME magazine as \u201cmarvelous and moving.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He is also the author of a book of essays, Discontent and Its Civilizations: Dispatches from Lahore, New York, and London <\/em>(Riverhead, 2016), where he has lived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additional campus events planned by the Intellectual Life Committee for the 2019-20 academic year focus on the experiences of Muslim Americans and on immigration:<\/p>\n\n\n\n