Paperback, black and white illustrations, 320 pages, W125mm x H200mm
Beauty - in both name and appearance - is a twenty-year-old Bangladeshi,
back in England having shocked her family by fleeing an abusive
arranged marriage. Now she is forced onto the jobseekers' treadmill.
Her fractious encounters with officialdom, fellow claimants, strangers
and passers-by in the city streets, exacerbated by the restrictions (and
comfort) of her language and culture, place her at the mercy of such
unlikely helpers as Mark, a friendly, dog-owning ex-offender, and Peter,
the middle-class underachiever on the rebound from a bitter
relationship.
Such 'white' influences conflict with the
pressure to toe the family religious line, enforced by her older
brother, but enable Beauty to understand better how free will and
parental care affect her personal destiny in fragmented inner-city
England today.