Showing results by author "Monica Ali" in All Categories

Yasmin Ghorami has a lot to be grateful for: a loving family, a fledgling career in medicine and a charming, handsome fiancé, fellow doctor Joe Sangster. But now the moment she has been dreading has arrived: it is time for her family to meet Joe's firebrand feminist mother. As the two families are drawn closer together, long-held secrets, lies and betrayals unravel on both sides—and Yasmin is forced to ask herself what she really wants in a relationship and what a 'love marriage' actually means ...

Nazneen is a teenager forced into an arranged marriage with an older man and misery seems to stretch ahead for her. Fearfully leaving the sultry oppression of her Bangladeshi village, Nazneen finds herself cloistered in a small flat in a high-rise block in the East End of London. Because she speaks no English, she is obliged to depend totally on her husband. But it becomes apparent that, of the two, she is the real survivor.…

Alentejo Blue is the story of the Portuguese village of Mamarrosa told through the lives of those who live there and those who are passing through: men and women, children and old people, locals, tourists, and expatriates. An old man reflects on his long and troubled life in this beautiful and seemingly tranquil setting, and anticipates the return of Marco Afonso Rodrigues, the prodigal son of the village and a symbol of this now fast-changing world.

1985. Uprooted from her home in Bangladesh, 18-year-old Nazneen is sent to London for an arranged marriage with a much older man. Her new life is strange and bewildering - the busy streets and crowded tower blocks of the East End are a world away from the rural village she grew up in, and she struggles to adapt to living with her self-important husband, Chanu. Back in Bangladesh, Nazneen's sister Hasina has eloped with the man she loves, and been disowned by her family.

Nazneen's inauspicious entry to the world, an apparent stillbirth on the hard mud floor of a Bangladeshi village hut, imbues in her a sense of fatalism that she carries across continents when she is married off to Chanu. Her life in London's Tower Hamlets is, on the surface, calm. For years, keeping house and rearing children, she does what is expected of her. Yet Nazneen walks a tightrope stretched between her daughters' embarrassment and her husband's resentments.

Nanzeen's inauspicious birth in a Bangladeshi village imbues in her a sense of fatalism that she carries across continents. Married off to a man old enough to be her father, Nanzeen moves to London and cares for her family. But gradually she begins to question whether fate controls her or whether she has a hand in her own destiny. She discovers both the complexity that comes with free choice and the depth of her attachment to her husband, her daughters and her new world.

Zwei Kulturen, zwei Familien, eine Verlobung: Kann das gutgehen? Yasmin und Joe haben große Pläne für die Zukunft. Doch bevor es für die beiden angehenden Ärzte ans Heiraten geht, steht das erste Kennenlernen ihrer Familien an. Und das hat es in sich. Denn während Yasmins traditionsbewusste Eltern schon bei einem Zungenkuss empört den Fernseher ausschalten, eilt Joes Mutter ein Ruf als feministische Ikone voraus. Und tatsächlich hält das Abendessen im noblen Primrose Hill überraschende Entwicklungen bereit.

Zwei Kulturen, zwei Familien, eine Verlobung: Kann das gutgehen? Yasmin und Joe haben große Pläne für die Zukunft. Doch bevor es für die beiden angehenden Ärzte ans Heiraten geht, steht das erste Kennenlernen ihrer Familien an. Und das hat es in sich. Denn während Yasmins traditionsbewusste Eltern schon bei einem Zungenkuss empört den Fernseher ausschalten, eilt Joes Mutter ein Ruf als feministische Ikone voraus. Und tatsächlich hält das Abendessen im noblen Primrose Hill überraschende Entwicklungen bereit.