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Merde in Europe
Merde in Europe
Mar 7, 2026 8:41 AM

Author:Stephen Clarke

Merde in Europe

THE POST-BREXIT EDITION - brand new chapters with extra EU chaos for Englishman Paul West.

An Englishman, Paul West, goes to Brussels to work for a French MEP. There he gets an insider's view of what really goes on in the massive madhouse that is the EU Parliament. With the referendum on the horizon, things are even more hysterical than usual.

When the Brexit result comes in, Paul has to make a decision. If he wants to work in Europe, should he apply for a French passport?

But can an Englishman really become French?

Can he sing the bloodthirsty 'Marseillaise'?

Can he even pronounce the word 'Marseillaise'?

And as Paul contemplates his own personal Brexit, the whole of Brussels seems to be going into meltdown …

Reviews

Stephen Clarke brings some much-needed humour to Britain’s EU referendum debate in this entertaining novel… Clarke considers both sides of the argument and makes the debate much more accessible.

—— France Magazine

The inside story of what life is really like behind the scenes at the European Union

—— Express

Humorous tale …

—— FRANCE Magazine

[A] devastating portrait of victims of war, creating a singular parable about modernity, migration and the individual's place in the world

—— The Guardian

A deceptively simple conceit turns a timely novel about a couple fleeing a civil war into a profound meditation on the psychology of exile. A novel that fuses the real with the surreal - perhaps the most faithful way to convey the tremulous political fault lines of our interconnected planet

—— The New York Times

No conventional love story. [An] exceptionally moving and powerful novel

—— The Guardian

Publisher's description. In an unnamed city swollen by refugees but not yet at war, two young people meet and fall in love. They pretend not to hear the sound of bombs getting closer every night. But one day soon they will have to escape this place, running for their lives, searching for their place in the world.

—— Penguin

Impressive... Exit West confirms Hamid's reputation as a brilliant ventriloquist who is deeply engaged with the most pressing issues of our time

—— Andrew Motion (Book of the Week) , Guardian

Powerful... Hamid unfolds the disintegration of civic life and the couple's poignant intimacy with vivid, economical strokes. Hamid is the master of the illuminating metaphor

—— Sunday Times

Wry [and] intelligent... Part pared-down romance, part 21st-century fable for a world of porous borders, Exit West is a thought experiment that pivots on the crucial figure of this century: the migrant

—— Financial Times

A subtle and moving examination of how human relationships endure and falter under unimaginable pressures. Exit West is an instant classic

—— GQ

Breathlessly relevant... Hamid's book could hardly be more timely; it's addictively readable and brilliantly written to boot

—— Mail on Sunday

Astonishing

—— Zadie Smith

Exit West packs such an emotional wallop you will be thinking about it for days afterwards. For Hamid is not only telling a story, he is asking what sort of a world we want to live in.

—— Editor's Choice, the Bookseller

A love story as spare, haunting and spiritually powerful as a haiku. All my life I will remember Nadia and Saeed, their humanity against a surreal, broken landscape. Exit West is Hamid's finest book.

—— Kiran Desai

It's a terrific, beautifully constructed, important novel of our time. This is what we expect fiction to do: to examine our age but also to cast an eye on the past and - very brilliantly in this case - on the future too. I love it.

—— Mirza Waheed

Exit West is a masterpiece. It stretches the boundaries of the real just enough to make a point about the state of immigrants and refugees in the contemporary world. But it's very much grounded in reality. It's a beautiful book.

—— Michael Chabon

Mohsin Hamid is one of the most talented and formally audacious writers of his generation

—— Telegraph

A man born to write

—— Dave Eggers

The voice of a changing continent. A writer at the top of his game

—— Metro

A masterclass in the power of prose that will resonate with anyone who has ever felt lost.

—— i paper

Baume’s writing is distinguished by remarkable precision and lucidity

—— Daily Mail

A fast-paced, ambitious, hallucinatory mystery

—— Publishers Weekly

Marvellous, original and intelligent. Kunzru writes like a master storyteller... There's simply nothing [he] couldn't manage in prose

—— Literary Review

Publisher's description. Electrifying, subversive and wildly original, White Tears is a ghost story and a love story, a story about lost innocence and historical guilt. This unmissable novel penetrates the heart of a nation's darkness, encountering a suppressed history of greed, envy, revenge and exploitation, and holding a mirror up to the true nature of America today.

—— Penguin

Compulsively readable, masterly - a tour de force

—— Rachel Kushner

Riveting from the very first page, I was completely addicted... A literary thriller and a timely, unsparing excavation of the very real spectre of race in America's past and present. White Tears is proof that Kunzru is one of the finest novelists of his generation...

—— Mirza Waheed

Hari Kunzru is an incredibly versatile writer who is alert to the inequalities in the world... Powerful and complex, White Tears is a novel about abuses of wealth and power. Brilliantly orchestrated, unforgettable and devastating

—— Bernardine Evaristo

Hari Kunzru is one of our most important novelists

—— Independent on Sunday

Kunzru's engagingly wired prose and agile plotting sweep all before them

—— New Yorker

Elizabeth Strout's My Name is Lucy Barton shouldn't work, but its frail texture was a triumph of tenderness, and sent me back to her excellent Olive Kitteridge

—— Cressida Connolly , The Spectator

A rich account of a relationship between mother and daughter, the frailty of memory and the power of healing

—— Mark Damazer , New Statesman

This physically slight book packs an unexpected emotional punch

—— Simon Heffer , Daily Telegraph

A novel offering more hope

—— Daisy Goodwin , Daily Mail

My Name Is Lucy Barton intrigues and pierces with its evocative, skin-peeling back remembrances of growing up dirt-poor.

—— Ann Treneman , The Times

Masterly

—— Anna Murphy
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