We follow Najwa, a young Sudanese woman whose life is overturned by political upheaval.

Raised in privilege in Khartoum, she is forced into exile in London after a coup destroys the world she understood. Years later, isolated and financially precarious, she works as a maid and begins to find structure, community and meaning through Islam.

Aboulela explores how the slow, painstaking reconstruction of a self after class, family, nation and certainty have all disappeared. There is no romance to London, and yet it's presence is neither liberation nor simple alienation either. Throughout, Najwa’s religious life develops alongside shame, desire, memory and the stubborn residues of privilege. 

Severe and psychologically exact, Minaret is especially strong on the relationship between political history and private life, and on the ways belonging can be remade without ever becoming uncomplicated.

Grove / Atlantic, New York, 2005. First American edition. Paperback. Light edge and corner wear with some rubbing and creasing to covers; internally clean and unmarked, binding sound. Very good condition.