A Mighty Collision of Two Worlds

Potential conflicts are piling up in this story about a relationship, which, at the outset, has all the ingredients of failure.Anisa is black, hails from Rako Island, a place in the East, and is raised in the Islamic faith. Mike is white, a warm American, but he has no particular religious feelings. Anisa starts out life in the US as an exchange student, and her first encounter with the West is disturbing, but a year down the road and she soon begins to adapt, and short while later forgets all about her roots. Far away from the constraints of family, Anisa flows with the tide of Western liberalism, and it is in this hedonistic environment that she meets Mike. She's pretty. He's available. And neither ponders the big questions of life, or give much thought to the hurdles that others like Faiza, Yusuf, or even her best friend, Floor, see coming. The two tie the knot, and it's only after the birth of their second child that the cracks are truly felt outside the walls. But while the book beats drums about the pitfalls of a mixed marriage, a new window opens out into a totally different world, and the reader is ushered into Safi's world, where people are people, and a spade is called a spade, and the reader is left to shake hands with friends and foes that jump off the pages of this brilliant novel. Inspiring, educating, delightful.