Salaam Brick Lane - Rilegato

Hall, Tarquin

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0719561574 ISBN 13: 9780719561573

Casa editrice: John Murray Publishers Ltd, 2005

Riassunto

After ten years living abroad, Tarquin Hall wanted to return to his native London. Lured by his nostalgia for a leafy suburb childhood spent in south-west London, he returned with his Indian-born, American fiancee in tow. Priced out of the housing market, they found themselves living not in a townhouse, oozing Victorian charm, but in a squalid attic above a Bangladeshi sweatshop on London's Brick Lane. A grimy skylight provided the only window on their new world: a filthy, noisy street where drug dealers and prostitutes peddled their wares and tramps urinated on the pavements. At night, traffic lights lit up the ceiling and police sirens wailed into the early hours. Yet, as Hall got to know Brick Lane, he discovered beneath its unlovely surface an inner world where immigrants and asylum seekers struggle to better themselves and dream of escape. He met the last of the East End Jews who, in their lifetimes, have watched their community slowly vanish, and he befriended some of the tens of thousands of Bangladeshis and asylum seekers who have replaced them. Salaam Brick Lane is a journey of discovery by an outsider in his own native city. It offers an explicit glimpse of the underbelly of London's most infamous quarter -- the real-life world of Monica Ali's bestselling novel.

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Recensione:

Well-written without mawkish pieties. (Saga Magazine)

'Charming, brilliant, affectionate and quietly impassioned . . . he lets the stories speak for themselves . . . [He has a] deft way with dialogue . . . a wonderful book . . . balanced, humane and life-affirming. I hope it sells out faster than cases of Chalky's "Coat de Roen"' (Kevin Rushby, Guardian)

'Tarquin Hall is right at the heart of what he writes about . . . Hall's new friends spring brilliantly to life off the page . . . it's hard to imagine a more moving or more telling record of lives on the edge' (Caroline Gascoigne, Sunday Times)

Amused and amusing, this is a refreshing addition to the accounts being offered of the area. (Stratford Recorder)

Fascinating and funny (Canterbury, Herne Bay, Whitstable & Faversham Focu)

What started out as a series of entertaining character sketches turns into an instructive investigation of "Englishness" . . . While Hall does not sidestep the problems raised by immigration, his forthright and funny book is a timely reminder of the revitalising effect "foreigners" have had on the mongrel race that proudly describes itself as "the English". (Peter Parker, Daily Telegraph)

I was absolutely riveted. It's funny, enlightening and very moving - but moving in a quiet, understated, English way, without any mawkish sentimentality. It has given me lots of new insights into the complexities and nuances of 'acculturation', and I'm recommending it to all my friends just because it's such a good read. (Kate Fox, author of Watching the English)

Powerful (Kent Messenger)

He has a fine ear for the myriad speech patterns of the East End's varied inhabitants . . . pertinent and unusually insightful views on the whole "illegal immigrant" issue . . . gripping (Daily Mail)

A remarkable cross-section of British society . . . Hall's sympathetic, anecdotal approach is a fine counter to the appalling racism of much current tabloid journalism . . . This is a fine and eloquent book. (What's On UK)

Descrizione del libro:

A gritty, hilarious and often touching memoir of a year spent living in the immigrant melting pot of London's East End.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: John Murray Publishers Ltd
• Data di pubblicazione: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0719561574
• ISBN 13: 9780719561573
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 288