Synopsis
In BRICK LANE, after an arranged marriage, Nazneen moves with her much older husband, Chanu, from Bangladesh to London, where over the years she manages to make a place for herself in spite of her husband's inability to cope. As she gains strength from raising two feisty daughters, taking a socially committed lover, and learning to make some money herself, she is able to oppose her ineffectual husband's decision to give up and go back to Bangladesh. Shortlisted for the Booker Prize, BRICK LANE was also a New York Times Notable Book in 2003.
| Details | | Publication Date: | 2008-03-11 | | Edition Description: | Reissue |
| Size | | Length: | 428 pages | | Height: | 7.8 in | | Width: | 5.0 in | | Thickness: | 1.0 in | | Weight: | 12.8 oz |
Publisher's Note
Carrying into her adult years a sense of fatalism instilled during her hardscrabble birth, Nazneen finds herself married off to a man twice her age and moved to London, where she begins to wonder if she has a say in her own destiny. A first novel. Reissue. (A Sony Pictures Classics film, directed by Sarah Gavron, releasing Spring 2008, starring Tannishtha Chatterjee, Satish Kaushik, & Christopher Simpson) (General Fiction)
Industry Reviews
"[A] fine debut....Ali was born in Bangladesh and raised in England, where BRICK LANE has been acclaimed, and rightly so: she is one of those dangerous writers who sees everything."
Kirkus Reviews (06/01/2003)
"Carefully observed and assured, the novel is free of pyrotechnics, its power residing in Ali's unsparing scrutiny of its hapless, hopeful protagonists."
Publishers Weekly (06/23/2003)
"Chanu inevitably recalls V. S. Naipaul's Mr. Biswas. That's not a limitation. Chanu doesn't stop being himself, but he also belongs to a recognizable tradition, and so does BRICK LANE. Monica Ali has been compared to Zadie Smith, but the two have little in common beyond demographics. Smith's comedy is more frantic, and while her prose is exhilarating, it's also self-dramatizing. Ali's eloquence is more firmly restrained; the language of BRICK LANE seems both deliberately unflamboyant and metaphorically precise....Monica Ali already has a sense of technical assurance and an inborn generosity that cannot be learned. BRICK LANE inspires confidence about the career that is to come."
New York Times Book Review - Michael Gorra (09/07/2003)
"BRICK LANE, Monica Ali's stunning debut, is both timeless and very much of the moment....Ali's mastery of her material is impressive. The world of the Bangladeshi diaspora...is vividly realised. Her satisfyingly complex characterization...borders on the Dickensian in its scope and eye for detail....It is enthralling; as a first novel it is exceptional."
Literary Review - Andrew Barrow (07/01/2003)
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