Flee or die

Every nation has the right to control its borders, but we in the West are getting a bit too comfortable dehumanising other humans for failing to fill out forms in triplicate before fleeing the carpet-bombing of their cities. In recent months, Theresa May has rejected Calais’s child refugees; Donald Trump has seemingly tried (unsuccessfully, twice) to ban Muslims; and Australia has gone full ‘Dickensian judge’ and chucked its refugees on a prison island. So at a time when expressing the hope that refugee kids don’t starve to death in camps marks one out as a ‘luvvie snowflake’, it’s good to have a writer grab us by the lapels and shout: ‘Look, we all know mass global displacement is a bit complex, but we can’t just tell everyone running from war to fuck off. ‘

Mohsin Hamid does that (albeit more subtly) in his stunning novel, Exit West. In an unnamed but moderate Middle Eastern city, Saeed and Nadia fall in love.