Minaret - by Leila Aboulela (Paperback)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

Leila Aboulela's American debut is a provocative, timely, and engaging novel about a young Muslim woman -- once privileged and secular in her native land and now impoverished in London -- gradually embracing her orthodox faith. With her Muslim hijab and down-turned gaze, Najwa is invisible to most eyes, especially to the rich families whose houses she cleans in London. Twenty years ago, Najwa, then at university in Khartoum, would never have imagined that one day she would be a maid. An upper-class Westernized Sudanese, her dreams were to marry well and raise a family. But a coup forces the young woman and her family into political exile in London. Soon orphaned, she finds solace and companionship within the Muslim community. Then Najwa meets Tamer, the intense, lonely younger brother of her employer. They find a common bond in faith and slowly, silently, begin to fall in love. Written with directness and force, Minaret is a lyric and insightful novel about Islam and an alluring glimpse into a culture Westerners are only just beginning to understand.

Review Quotes

Praise for Minaret:

"Harbors something remarkable beneath commonplace trappings...Lit up by a highly unusual sensibility and world view, so rarefied and uncompromising that it is likely to throw the reader out of kilter...Her delicacy of touch is to be complimented." --Chandrahas Choudhury, San Francisco Chronicle

"Absorbing...Though her writing is simple, even bald, Aboulela has vivid descriptive powers." --Ella Taylor, LA Weekly

"She draws Najwa's odyssey of exile, loss and found faith beautifully." --Publishers Weekly

"This simple near-parable of a story successfully combines a tale of inexperience and cultural confusion with an insider's view of the conflicts and complexities within the immigrant and Muslim communities. A low-key, affecting account of one bruised young woman's search for wisdom and solace." --Kirkus Reviews

"Clear and precise writing, sympathetic characters, and positive portrayals of Muslim religious practices lend this elegantly crafted novel broad appeal." --Starr E. Smith, Library Journal

"A novel that unpacks complex emotional baggage with deceptive sleight of hand." --Emma Hagestadt, The Independent (UK)

"The novel deftly oscillates between past and present as Najwa struggles to gain a grip on her 'real self". Aboulela is finely attuned to the nuances of cultural difference and her prose glistens with details of those things that define or unmake identity. . . . Aboulela's fidelity to her narrator's voice, as she struggles to find a foothold in an unstable world, makes for a disconcerting portrayal of how rapidly the ground beneath one's feet can slip away." --Tania Kumari, Telegraph

"The narrative is tranquil and lyrical...Aboulela describes the uncertainty and terror of the country's westernized elite in the 80s, and assembles a persuasive description of why a fundamentalist politics emerged...In a narrative of complex reversals, Aboulela takes a huge risk in describing her heroine's religious conversion and spiritual dedication. She succeeds brilliantly. This is a beautiful, daring, challenging novel." --Mike Phillips, Guardian

"Her prose moves with the steady pace of someone who knows her faith, and knows she must not falter...Often delicate and evocative." --Jonathan Falla, Scotsman

"Aboulela writes poignantly of the exile's diminished life in the West." --Anderson Tepper, Vanity Fair