Abstract
Monica Ali’s Brick Lane (2003) is perhaps the most well-known work by a British Muslim author since Hanif Kureishi’s The Buddha of Suburbia (1990); like Kureishi’s work, Ali’s fi ction has been subject to cinematic adaptation, which has brought it to the mainstream. At the same time, it is also the most controversial work of fi ction to be published since Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses (1988), something which the fi lm version also precipitated. When British Muslims based in Brick Lane, with their ancestry in the Sylheti region of Bangladesh, objected to the novel’s presentation of their community, there were obvious resonances with the Rushdie Affair.1 Published only two years after the events of 9/11, the novel exposed an already vulnerable community to further scrutiny, highlighting the ways in which anti-Muslim and Islamophobic discourses had made South Asian Muslims intensely sensitive to any potential denigration of their culture.
Published Version
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