This book was suggested ages ago in our book club. It was never chosen but I had it on my wish list ever since. Not a bad decision.
Brick Lane is the name of a street in East London where a lot of Bangladeshi immigrants live. This is the story about Nazneen from a tiny village in Bangladesh who gets married off to an elderly man in London, England. From now on, she leads the life so many women lead, she lives in England but is more or less confined to the walls of her little apartment. She lives a Bengali life in Europe.
I loved the way the author describes the characters, especially Nazneen, the young bride who grows during the novel. Her relationship with her husband, children, neighbours, her sister back in Bangladesh, everything is characterized so well. You can almost feel what Nazneen is feeling, smell the smells, hear the sounds of the city.
An interesting story with so many topics, the main one being "fate" and fighting or giving in to it.
Gripping story, very satisfying read.
Monica Ali was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for "Brick Lane" in 2003.
See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2024.
From the back cover:
"A captivating read from a debut novelist, Brick Lane brings the immigrant milieu of East London to vibrant life. With great poignancy, Ali illuminates a foreign world; her well-developed characters pull readers along on a deeply psychological, almost spiritual journey. Through the eyes of two Bangladeshi sisters - the plain Nazneen and the prettier Hasina - we see the divergent paths of the contemporary descendants of an ancient culture. Hasina elopes to a "love marriage," and young Nazneen, in an arranged marriage, is pledged to a much older man living in London.
Ali's skillful narrative focuses on Nazneen's stifling life with her ineffectual husband, who keeps her imprisoned in a city housing project filled with immigrants in varying degrees of assimilation. But Ali reveals a bittersweet tension between the 'two kinds of love' Nazneen and her sister experience - that which begins full and overflowing, only to slowly dissipate, and another which emerges like a surprise, growing unexpectedly over years of faithful commitment. Both of these loves have their own pitfalls: Hasina's passionate romance crumbles into domestic violence, and Nazneen's marriage never quite reaches a state of wedded bliss.
Though comparisons have drawn between Ali and Zadie Smith, a better comparison might be made between this talented newcomer and the work of Amy Tan, who so deftly portrays the immigrant experience with empathy and joy."
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