The English Harem - Softcover

McCarten, Anthony

3.63

543 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1846880009 ISBN 13: 9781846880001

Publisher: Alma Books Ltd, 2005

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This is a publication to coincide with a major new ITV drama starring Martine McCutcheon and Art Malik. In this hilarious, provocative and highly topical story of food, love and Islam, Anthony McCarten exposes the flaws inherent to our multicultural society, and explores the nature of racism from a startlingly original angle. Supermarket checkout girl Tracy Pringle has a very lively imagination indeed. In front of her, as she blip-blips herself into a daydream, walk past not boring housewives with screaming children or tired office clerks, but the likes of Lord Byron, Lawrence of Arabia and Princess Leia. It comes as no surprise, then, that she turns a blind eye when Her Majesty herself pops a packet of Mr Kipling's Bakewell tarts into her handbag without paying. Obviously, the management sees it differently, and Tracy is given the sack on the spot and forced to find herself another job. But nothing can prepare her for the new life that awaits her at the Taste of Persia restaurant, where she is flung headlong into a clash of cultures, languages, dinner plates, religions and a rather tricky domestic arrangement...

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Review:

"Anthony McCarten dares to speak of English multiculturalism in the satirical tongue that most native writers keep mute" -- Observer

"Anthony McCarten dares to speak of English multiculturalism in the satirical tongue that most native writers keep mute� -- Observer

"Everyone who reads McCarten's generous, humane, funny, and moving novel will come away enriched." -- Timothy Mo

"Here's a writer with heart and an amazing boldness of invention" -- Timothy Mo

"McCarten's novel hovers between indignant satire and engaging
comedy of manners" -- Sunday Times

"McCarten's novel hovers between indignant satire and engaging comedy of manners" -- Sunday Times

From the Publisher:

Newly revised edition, contains new ending since it was first published by Picador.

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