The Newlyweds

Following correspondence on AsianEuro.com Amina travels from Bangladesh to Rochester, New York to marry George. The reader follows this very modern arranged marriage through the first few years of confusion and culture clash and gentle heartbreak as Amina learns to adjust to life in another country and discovers not everything is as she believed.

Nell Freudenberger deals deftly with themes of identity and culture and in Amina presents a complex and heroic character dealing with a new life unmoored from familiar surroundings. At the same time she creates an incredibly detailed picture of life in both Bangladesh and the USA so the reader too feels suspended between the two worlds. Bigger ideas of religion, politics and a post-9-11 world are also excellently handled and while the events of the decade clearly have impacted on the Muslim characters it's admirable that this is not the theme of the book. Rather this is a moving story about individuals, hopes, dreams and the gulf between what we think we want and what we actually desire.