Broken Paths

Winner of the Muslim Writers Awards 'Unpublished Novel' 2009. The award-winning Broken Paths is a powerful, tender and elegiac story that charts the dysfunctional relationship between a Bengali single mother and her son, living in England. It peels away layers of family history in both countries to reveal the painful secrets that each keeps from the other, the estrangement this causes over time, and the clash of cultural, religious and moral values. Samir, raised in London and sick of his mother's traditional lifestyle and suffocating love, moves out of home to find his own way beyond his dead end job and druggy friends. Amina is left lonely and desperate: her life's work in her adopted country has been to turn her son into a successful Muslim family man. A Bengali neighbour persuades Amina that an arranged marriage will get her son back, but this path leads to a fateful confrontation between mother and son. The tragic fallout tests the true strength of filial love.