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Anthony McCarten | The English Harem | English Title: The English Harem<br>Novel, 592 Pages

Novel, Hardcover
592 Pages
Published in March 2008

ISBN 978-3-257-06640-1

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Anthony McCarten
The English Harem

Published by Diogenes as Englischer Harem

Young supermarket checkout girl Tracy Pringle, who lives in a rundown high rise in London, has a very lively imagination indeed. As she blip-blips the groceries of her exhausted customers she transforms them into her favourite fairy-tale heroines and pop celebrities. Of course, Tracy doesn’t detain Queen Elizabeth II or Madonna when they steal from the store, and of course, Tracy loses her job. But she enters a real daydream when she meets and falls in love with her new employer, restauranteur Saaman Sahar, the distinguished older owner of a vegetarian restaurant, offspring of a butcher dynasty from Teheran, Oxford graduate, Moslem and member of an Anglican Church choir... With two wives already. The contrasts smash against each other: East and West, rich and poor, vegetables and meat, polygamy and monogamy, old and young, tolerant humanity and blind force... »Are we still the rulers in our own country?«, complain Tracy’s parents, while Tracy and Sam are long since asking what homeland, faithfulness, religion, a family – and happiness – mean today.

QuotesShow all

»A culture-clash-comedy of hearty tenderness with a melancholic ending.«Basler Zeitung, bazkulturmagazin

»›English Harem‹ has the epic greatness of John Irving's novels, but also the quality to engage the reader in its fantastic plot ... ›English Harem‹ is highly subversive entertainment ... ›English Harem‹ is not only a brilliant tragicomedy ... but also a great love story. A sensitive, witty and political novel.« Deutschlandradio Kultur

»A great novel about love, food and the fascination of a foreign culture.« SonntagsBlick

»McCarten’s novel hovers between indignant satire and engaging comedy of manners while sounding a clarion call against the bigotry and intolerance in our society.« Sunday Times

»Anthony McCarten dares to speak of English multiculturalism in the satirical tongue that most native writers keep mute.« The Observer

»Everyone who reads McCarten’s generous, humane, funny, and moving novel will come away enriched.« Timothy Mo

»›English Harem‹ is a satire on society without match.«Preußische Allgemeine Zeitung

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