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Description edit
After an arranged marriage to Chanu, a man twenty years older, Nazneen is taken to London, leaving her home and heart in the Bangladeshi village where she was born. Her new world is full of mysteries. How can she cross the road without being hit by a car (an operation akin to dodging raindrops... read more
Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit
Characters/People edit
- Nazneen: main character; bangladeshi woman married to man from london
- Razia: Add a description of this character.
- Karim
- Hasina
- Bibi
- Mrs. Islam: Nazneena's neighbor
- Mrs. Azad
- Raqib
- Shahana: Nazneem's daughter
- Shefali
- Chanu: Nazneem's husband.
- Mr. Chowdhury
- Tariq
- Hussain
- Shahnaz
- Nazma
- Subhanallah
- Renu
- Tarig
- Rupban
- James
- Mr. Dalloway
- Abdul
- Mumtaz
- Mustafa
- Hanufa
- Igo
- Wilkie
- Banesa
- Betty
- Hamid
- Tagore
- Nishi
Quotes edit
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“Sometimes we just have to wait and see. Sometimes that's all we can do.”
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“Whatever happens, I accept it. And my child must not waste any energy fighting against Fate.”
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“Of course, Fate will decide everything in the end, whatever route you follow.”
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“It's like you're watching the television in black and white and someone comes along and switches on the colours.”
- Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers
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“If God wanted us to ask questions, he would have made us men.”
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He came as a man of science, to observe a rare specimen: unhappiness greater than his own.
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“What I did not know—I was a young man—is that there are two kinds of love. The kind that starts off big and slowly wears away, that seems you can never use it up and then one day is finished. And the kind that you don’t notice at first, but which adds a little bit to itself every day, like an oyster makes a pearl, grain by grain, a jewel from the sand.”
Highlighted by 16 Kindle customers -
“They go around covered from head to toe, in their little walking prisons, and when someone calls to them in the street they are upset. The society is racist. The society is all wrong. Everything should change for them. They don’t have to change one thing. That,” she said, stabbing the air, “is the tragedy.”
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“The thing about getting older,” said Chanu, “is that you don’t need everything to be possible anymore, you just need some things to be certain.”
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For a glorious moment it was clear that clothes, not fate, made her life.
Highlighted by 11 Kindle customers -
“Of course, Fate will decide everything in the end, whatever route you follow.”
Highlighted by 11 Kindle customers -
Where Nazneen turned in, he turned out; where she strove to accept, he was determined to struggle; where she attempted to dull her mind and numb her thoughts, he argued aloud; while she wanted to look neither to the past nor to the future, he lived exclusively in both. They took different paths but they had journeyed, so she realized, together.
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What could not be changed must be borne. And since nothing could be changed, everything had to be borne. This principle ruled her life. It was mantra, fettle, and challenge. So that, at the age of thirty-four, after she had been given three children and had one taken away, when she had a futile husband and had been fated a young and demanding lover, when for the first time she could not wait for the future to be revealed but had to make it for herself, she was as startled by her own agency as an infant who waves a clenched fist and strikes itself upon the eye.
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‘A man cannot live without water. He cannot live without it, but he can bear the thought of no water. A man can live without sex. He can live without it, but he cannot bear the thought of no sex. This is my suggestion.’ “That’s how the women in my village got themselves a new well. If you think you are powerless, then you are. Everything is within you, where God put it. If your husband does not do what is required, think what you yourself have left undone.”
Highlighted by 8 Kindle customers
First Sentence edit
An hour and forty-five minutes before Nazucen's life began-began as it would proceed for quite some time, that is to say uncertainly-her mother, Rupban, felt an iron fist squeeze her belly.
Series & Lists edit
This is book 27 of 100 in Top 100 Books That Defined The Noughties (Telegraph). (authoritative list)
Preceded by Homage to Gaia, and followed by The Fall of Berlin 1945.
This is book 89 of 30 in Top selling 100 books 1998-2010 (Guardian). (authoritative list)
Preceded by Happy Days with the Naked Chef, and followed by Anybody Out There?.
Authors & Contributors edit
- Monica Ali (Author)
First Edition edit
Original Language: English
Publisher: Doubleday
Country: United Kingdom
Publication Date: 2003
ISBN: 0743243315
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Doubleday
Country: United Kingdom
Publication Date: 2003
ISBN: 0743243315
Page Count: 432
Awards edit
- Man Booker Prize (Finalist, 2003, shortlist)
- The Orwell Prize (Finalist, 2004: Book Prize)
- National Book Critics Circle Award (Finalist, 2003: Fiction)
- Waverton Good Read Award (Finalist, 2003/4, Shortlist)
Classification edit
- Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
- Dewey: 823.92
Subjects edit
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