by Joyeeta Basu
Freelance Writer

There seems to be an explicit shift in mood among Brit-Asian authors. Taking a step away from oft-repeated tales of forced marriages and identity crisis, the move is towards crystallizing their individualities in modern Britain.

The voices are stark and powerful, as they explore different themes that were largely unexplored by their predecessors.

We cover four books: by Ziauddin Sardar, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Kia Abdullah and Shelina Janmohamed.

In her book Love in a Headscarf, author Shelina Janmohamed writes an autobiographical account of her experiences of an arranged marriage.
It is an arrangement that the Oxford-educated Janmohamed chooses for herself.

Reading almost like a date diary, the synopsis of her book reads, “Muslim woman Shelina Zahra Janmohamed is keeping a very surprising secret under her headscarf – she wants to fall in love and be a practising Muslim. Torn between the Buxom Aunties, romantic comedies and mosque Imams, she decides to follow the arranged marriage route to finding the One, Muslim-style. Love in a Headscarf recounts her coming of age journey to look for the One, with plenty of soul-searching, heartache, laughter and learning experiences along the way.”

Janmohamed is a columnist with Muslim News and Emel magazine and also regularly contributes to the Guardian.

Speaking about the theme of her book, she explained in an interview, “Integration of Muslim and Western culture is constantly in the news as a controversial subject, and Muslim women’s voices are rarely heard as independent and humorous… Although marriage and finding the perfect partner feature prominently on most Westerners’ list of life goals, many have trouble achieving it in an age which offers so many options. Ironically, it could be that the Muslim approach to relationships could have something beneficial to offer Westerners. The debate continues.”

While Janmohamed takes a modern view of a traditional arrangement, author Kia Abdullah, chooses to subvert all expectations with Child’s Play. Due to release in December 2009, this psychological sex-crime thriller has an ultra violent, ultra sexual tone. “It shatters the delicate sensibilities which often govern output from British-Asian writers,” states her Web site.

Dealing with a theme that has nothing to do with her multicultural roots, she tells the story of 25-year-old Allegra Ashe. After a chance encounter with an alluring stranger, Allegra is recruited into ‘Vokoban’; a covert government unit that uses a mysterious new law to chase and convict paedophiles.

She becomes deeply involved with the unit and so begins her descent into the darkness and depravity of the human mind. As her life spirals out of control, readers find themselves voyeurs in a twisted world of lust, danger, deceit and revenge. “With several recent high-profile cases of sexual abuse and paedophilia, Child’s Play taps into a subject that repulses and fascinates in equal measures. It places a telescope into the darkest recesses of the human mind and invites the reader to take a look,” adds the synopsis.

Kia’s first novel Life, Love and Assimilation had evoked praise and controversies in equal measures. Its inclusion of several sexually graphic scenes had been criticised by her family and community members. But despite the controversy, Abdullah remained firm in her view that issues should be explored. “I have a voice and I’ll say what I want with it. I am not backing down. I am not staging a retreat. Let people say what they want to say,” said the author, who contributes to a number of publications including Guardian and Asian Woman.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown’s The Settler’s Cookbook, on the other hand, is largely a food memoir. Her family history is one of constant displacement and repeated relocation where the feeling of being settled has come not from putting down roots, but from taking up a pot and creating a feast that tastes and smells like home.

Yasmin’s forebears left India in the 19th century for East Africa. While some built the railway, others were lured by the prospect of prosperity under the imperial regime. They flourished there under British rule and thereafter in independent Uganda. But in 1972, when Asians were expelled from Uganda by Idi Amin, Yasmin, like thousands of others moved to the UK.

The food she cooks combines the traditions and flavours of her family’s hybrid culinary heritage – a mouth-watering collection of recipes handed down over generations, modified and improved along the way.

“Here you’ll discover how Shepherd’s Pie is enhanced by sprinkling in some chilli, Victoria sponge can be enlivened by saffron and lime juice, and the addition of ketchup to a curry can be life-changing,” she states on her Web site. Yasmin is a leading commentator on race, multiculturalism and human rights. She writes for the Independent and Guardian and is the author of No Place Like Home (1995).

While most have been stories of individuals, Ziauddin Sardar undertakes a daunting task. He seeks to assemble the mind-boggling diversity of the British Asian experience in Balti Britain.

A review of the book on Amazon reads, “In this funny, surprising, touching, and controversial study, Ziauddin Sardar travels to the main Asian communities in the UK-among them Leicester and Birmingham, Glasgow and Bradford, Tower Hamlets and Oldham-to tell the history of Asians in Britain. From the arrival of the first Indian in 1614 through the entangled days of colonialism, to the young extremists in Walthamstow mosque in 2006.”

Sardar interweaves accounts of his own life through the book, describing his carefree childhood in Pakistan, his family’s migration to racist 1950s Britain, and his adulthood straddling two cultures. Along the way he asks a bevy of probing questions, among them “Are arranged marriages a good thing? Does the term Asian obscure more than it conveys? Do Vindaloo and Balti actually exist? How far does “the disease that is in us is of us and within us” describe Islamic terrorism? And is multiculturalism an impossible dream?”

Ziauddin Sardar isa distinguished writer, commentator and broadcaster. He has made numerous television programmes, including Battle for Islam, a 90-minute documentary for BBC2 and Dispatches for Channel 4 on Pakistan. In 2006 he was appointed a Commissioner of the Equality and Human Rights Commission of Britain.

The books, though deal with diverse themes, leave an impact on modern day Britain with their social commentaries.