num_pages: 416
description: Wildly embraced by critics, readers, and contest judges (who put it on the short-list for the 2003 Man Booker Prize), Brick Lane is indeed a rare find: a book that lives up to its hype. Monica Ali's debut novel chronicles the life of Nazneen, a Bangladeshi girl so sickly at birth that the midwife at first declares her stillborn. At 18 her parents arrange a marriage to Chanu, a Bengali immigrant living in England. Although Chanu--who's twice Nazneen's age--turns out to be a foolish blowhard who "had a face like a frog," Nazneen accepts her fate, which seems to be the main life lesson taught by the women in her family. "If God wanted us to ask questions," her mother tells her, "he would have made us men." Over the next decade-and-a-half Nazneen grows into a strong, confident woman who doesn't defy fate so much as bend it to her will. The great delight to be had in Brick Lane lies with Ali's characters, from Chanu the kindly fool to Mrs. Islam the elderly loan shark to Karim the political rabblerouser, all living in a hothouse of Bengali immigrants. Brick Lane combines the wide scope of a social novel about the struggles of Islamic immigrants in pre- and post-9/11 England with the intimate story of Nazneen, one of the more memorable heroines to come along in a long time. If Dickens or Trollope were loosed upon contemporary London, this is exactly the sort of novel they would cook up. --Claire Dederer
language: English
title: Brick Lane
titlecomplete: Brick Lane
genres: Fiction, Asia, British Literature, Book Club, India, Literature, Novels, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, Bangladesh
ratings_count: 32868
places: Bangladesh, London, England
awards: awardedAt: 1041408000000
name: Booker Prize, awardedAt: 1072944000000
name: Orange Prize
category: Fiction Longlist, awardedAt: 1041408000000
name: Guardian First Book Award, awardedAt: 1072944000000
name: Orwell Prize, awardedAt: 1072944000000
name: Audie Award
category: Fiction, Abridged, awardedAt: 1041408000000
name: National Book Critics Circle Award
category: Fiction, awardedAt: 1072944000000
name: Kiriyama Prize
category: Fiction
publisher: Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group