ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION In her recent and hugely popular novel Brick Lane (2003) Monica Ali tells the story of the Ahmed family, Bengali migrants who live in the East End of London. The novel centres on the thoughts and aspirations of Nazneen, weaving a narrative between her childhood in Bangladesh, the life of her sister Hasina who remains in Dacca and the migrant community of Brick Lane in London to which Nazneen comes on her marriage to Chanu. The novel encompasses the pains and possibilities of migration – her husband’s humiliation and struggle to find employment and status, her daughters’ adept negotiation of the differing demands of Bengali and British societies, racism and the response to racism by Bengali young men on the estate, who form new political Islamist organizations, and Nazneen’s own awakening as she charts a new life in a foreign country.
