Now, Brick Lane is an A-level text for English Literature on various exam boards.
You can’t look at one without looking at the other. There’s always an interplay between those two things. But the tension between thinking, ‘Oh, well, groups want to stick together and form their own communities and be separate’-you have to butt that up against the host community, whether they are accepting and welcoming, or not. So I was always aware of those silos and differences and racism.
I’d walk over from school past swastikas and the NF signs. Plus, there were tensions, of course, in the 1970s when I was growing up. I grew up in Bolton, and there was a sizeable Asian minority there: people who’d quite often come to work in the mills in Lancashire, and because the mills started to close down were therefore seen as unwanted and extraneous. “And I find that, particularly in America-which is the nation of immigrants after all-there were a lot of things that people could relate to just within that idea of a longing for home, nostalgia, a difficulty fitting in or conflict between the different generations. Also, it’s a funny book-people tend to enjoy that too.
Perhaps from a very different culture or heritage, but they can relate. Another factor is a lot of people have an immigrant story somewhere in their background. 'This has become a classic and i can see why'*****įrom the author: “What was most interesting about the response to Brick Lane? I think people’s surprise that someone they might pass in the street-a brown woman in a sari who doesn’t speak English, who they might not grant full humanity-could be a real person too! In very crude terms, there was an element of that. 'The kind of book that changes your perception of the world' ***** ' Highly evolved and accomplished' OBSERVER 'A brilliant evocation of sensuality' DAILY TELEGRAPH SHORTLISTED FOR THE GUARDIAN FIRST BOOK AWARD On a background of racial conflict and tension, they embark on a love affair that forces Nazneen finally to take control of her fate. Nazneen knows not a word of English, and is forced to depend on her husband.Ĭonfined in her tiny flat, Nazneen sews furiously for a living, shut away with her buttons and linings - until the radical Karim steps unexpectedly into her life. Away from her Bangladeshi village, home is now a cramped flat in a high-rise block in London's East End. Still in her teenage years, Nazneen finds herself in an arranged marriage with a disappointed older man. 'Written with a wisdom and skill that few authors attain in a lifetime' SUNDAY TIMES THE SUNDAY TIMES and NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
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