21 pop culture moments in 2017 that spoke to the zeitgeist

Exit West (cover image via Riverhead Books)

Exit West

Let’s begin with the novel. Full disclosure: I’m not nearly as good at keeping up with literature as I am with film or television. No doubt, there are tons of other books that belong on this list; I just haven’t read them.

Still, as far as lone representatives go, Exit West is more than worthy. Don’t be fooled by its slim length; Mohsin Hamid’s 2017 Man Booker Prize finalist tells a story of epic proportions. It starts small, with two strangers meeting. Nadia and Saeed are university students in a nameless city in a nameless country ravaged by turmoil. As their love blossoms, civil war engulfs their home, and they eventually flee. Instead of taking a traditional land-and-sea route, however, they discover a strange passageway “of complete darkness” that transports them to Greece. Similar doors appear all over the world, enabling anyone to travel to anywhere from anywhere.

With crystal-clear language and flowing sentences, Hamid recounts the shattering repercussions of these doors, which render national borders obsolete. Cities bulge with refugees. Xenophobia flourishes, and riots erupt. Individuals — both native and migrant — grapple with their place in the changing world.

Don’t call Exit West apocalyptic fiction, though. Over time, the feverish sketches of societies unmade by globalization crystallize into a nearly utopian vision of societies remade from the ruins. It’s what the author describes as radical optimism. Courage, he suggests, requires a willingness to not only face the present, but also imagine the future. We all end up there, whether we like it or not.