num_pages: 276
description: Four strangers meet on a turbulent flight from Dubai to London: Amira, a canny Moroccan prostitute; Lamis, a 30-year old Iraqi divorcee; Nicholas, an English expert on Islamic art; and Samir, a Lebanese man who is delivering a monkey on a mission he doesn’t fully understand. Once safely on British soil, Lamis and Nicholas fall in love, Samir chases after blond British youths, and Amira reinvents herself as a princess, the better to lure clients at the best London hotels. Through the city and across cultural borders, Only in London wittily portrays the smells, sounds, and sights of London’s lively Arab neighorhoods, as well as the freedoms the city both offers and withholds from its immigrants.
language: English
title: Only in London
titlecomplete: Only in London
genres: Fiction, Lebanon, British Literature, Literature, Novels, Contemporary, Literary Fiction
ratings_count: 594
awards: awardedAt: 1009872000000
name: Independent Foreign Fiction Prize
category: Shortlist
publisher: Bloomsbury