Corner Shop

There are only two tragedies in life. One is not getting your heart's desire - and the other? Getting it. Fourteen-year-old Lucky Khalil has a destiny – worse than a destiny, he has a dream. He dreams that one day, he will win the World Cup for England . It torments him, because it tastes real, because when he wakes he weeps with disappointment that it is just a dream. Meanwhile, Lucky’s mother Delphine seems to have had all her dreams come true, but feels trapped in her apparently perfect marriage.  She fantasizes about rediscovering the freedom of her youth, but rekindling a relationship with her maverick father-in-law, Zaki, can only end in disaster.  Zaki, a charming gambler who loved and lost Delphine long before she married his successful son, feels equally trapped in the corner shop he has run for years.  He wonders if the time has come to abandon his responsibilities, to try once more to achieve his own dreams.

As each of the Khalils discovers in Roopa Farooki’s beautifully written and richly layered tale, the closer one's dreams become, the easier it is to lose sight of what really matters.