Remembering and Dislocation: Memory, Materiality and Imagination in Mohsin Hamid's <i>Exit West (2017)</i>

ABSTRACT This paper offers a nuanced reading of Mohsin Hamid's Exit West , examining the refugee experience through the intertwined prisms of memory, materiality and imagination. Set in an unnamed Middle Eastern country, the novel traces the journey of Saeed and Nadia as they escape militant violence via mystical doors that transport them to alternate worlds marked by segregation, encampment and exile. The study foregrounds how the characters' embodied perceptions and imaginative engagements evoke acts of remembering, intertwined with their sensory and spatial environments. Drawing on Material Engagement Theory as formulated by Malafouris, the paper explores memory and materiality within the framework of embedded and extended cognition, emphasizing the active role of material objects and spaces in shaping memory and identity. Moving beyond traditional refugee narratives centered solely on nostalgia and displacement, this analysis integrates temporality and spatiality as critical dimensions of the migrant experience. By reconceptualising space alongside memory, perception and imagination, the paper reveals how Exit West challenges linear notions of time and place, offering a complex, embodied account of migration that resists reductive tropes. This interdisciplinary approach enriches the understanding of Hamid's novel and contributes to broader dialogues on literature, cognition and the politics of displacement in contemporary global contexts.