Sorrows of the Moon: A Journey Through London

Ahmed, Iqbal

ISBN 10: 0954808002 / ISBN 13: 9780954808006

Published by Coldstream Publishers, London, 2006

About this Item

Hardcover with jacket. Acceptable condition. Signed by the author on the title page. Light marks and faint stains on the jacket. A portion of the rear upper leading corner is chipped; this part of the jacket is also partially stuck to the hardcover, due to probable water / stain damage. Slight sunning on the hardcover. Tiny stains on the closing page corners. The main content is all clear. CM.

Seller Inventory # 468148

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Sorrows of the Moon: A Journey Through London
• Publisher: Coldstream Publishers, London
• Publication Date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0954808002
• ISBN 13: 9780954808006
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 3rd Edition.
• Condition: Acceptable
• Signed: Signed by Author
• Book Type: Used
• Seller catalogs:
  • Travel & Geography

About this title

Synopsis

Iqbal Ahmed roams the city, on foot and by bike, quietly observing and comparing - sometimes with wonder and sometimes with dismay - the real London with the city he imagined while growing up in Kashmir. Here is the East End of Bengali tailors and Indian restaurants, the near-deserted Fleet Street and forbidding Barbican, the buzzing electronic shops of Tottenham Court Road, the book fairs of Bloomsbury, the snobbery of Hampstead and the demotic liveliness of Camden Town. During the course of his travels, we meet a variety of displaced men and women trying to find a place among the English - Anwar the Bengali tailor, Zack the educated Pathan who hates working in the City, Solomon the Nigerian doorman, Kasim the Egyptian kiosk vendor, the Asian sub-postmistress who bullies employees and customers alike, Fabio the Brazilian private cab driver, Ali the Moroccan bookshop porter, and Isabel the Venezuelan kept woman who, after her wealthy lover abandons her, finds refuge in a community of South American cleaners.

By turns poignant and funny, Sorrows of the Moon shows us the underside of a wide range of working milieus that we all too often take for granted. And it gently illuminates the plight of people who have escaped from one world into another in search of freedom, only to find confinement of another kind.

Review

'Read it and weep: and be grateful for its subtlety, courtesy and depth’ -- Ruth Padel, Chair, The Poetry Society

'Sorrows of the Moon dextrously examines the melancholy lives of London immigrants' -- Sameer Rahim in TLS

'reveals itself as a Mayhew excursion through the cruel and fantastic city we forced to recognize as our own’ -- Iain Sinclair in The Guardian

‘An immigrant’s take on London and his experience of reality against expectation. Beautifully written and a name to watch’ -- Andrew Stilwell in The Times