Exit English? Reflections on Linguistic Imperialism in Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West

Abstract

This paper considers the questions of universalism and the use of English as a global language in Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West in two parts: The first part examines the role of language in creating the world of the novel, and the second takes into account the function of naming/un-naming in mapping this world. In so doing, we attempt to reflect upon the linguistic vision that is presented in Exit West and how that vision informs the cartography of its world. We thus explore the distribution and valuation of English as a universal language and Englishes as varieties of it in the narrative and their intersection with nationalism, Hamid’s alternatives to such distribution and valuation, and the overlap between his linguistic alternatives and territorial expansion and sanction are investigated. While Hamid’s linguistic vision in the novel, we argue, proffers spaces for defying and resisting linguistic imperialism, it at times remains reinscribed within the hegemony of the English language. Keywords: World Literature, Lingua Franca, Global English, Linguistic Imperialism, Mohsin Hamid, Exit West.