Brick Lane is the debut novel by Monica Ali, an English writer of Bangladeshi origin (born in Dhaka). Nazneen, born in a Bangladeshi village, is married off to a man twice her age and taken to England. In London, she does what is expected of her: she runs the household and raises children, constantly balancing between her husband’s conviction in the correctness of the traditional Muslim way of life and her daughters’ desire for modern European life. This fragile balance is disrupted by Karim, a young activist of the radical Bengal Tigers movement. Karim forces Nazneen to think about the justice of the social order and the correctness of her marital status, but the traditional conflict of duty and passion is resolved in a completely unexpected way for both of them. The novel was shortlisted for the 2003 Booker Prize.