Free Write
In the opening sections of Exit West, Hamid shows characters continuing to eat, flirt, work, and move through the city even as checkpoints multiply and gunfire becomes background noise. In your writing today, identify two or three specific moments from the first 80 pages where ordinary life and crisis exist side by side. What does Hamid seem to be saying about how people actually live through the early stages of catastrophe? What details does he choose to dwell on, and what does that emphasis reveal?
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