Brick Lane by Monica Ali

Also set in the UK, is Brick Lane by Monica Ali. The setting of this book is significant as it is the location of the Jamme Masjid or Great London Mosque ;which is on the corner of Brick Lane and Fournier Street. This building is a perfect illustration of the East End's role as the point of entry for immigrant groups. It was originally founded as a church for Hugenots - French Protestants who fled to London to avoid persecution at home. The chapel was later used by Methodists. In the late 19th century, when Whitechapel became the centre of the Jewish East End, it became the Machzike Adass, also known as the Spitalfields Great Synagogue. With the dispersal of the Jewish community and a new influx of Bengali immigrants, it became the Jamme Masjid or Great London Mosque in 1976.

IN Monica Ali ‘s story the historic forces of the past , shape the father’s view of life in the UK .He lives in Brick lane here only to return to Pakistan while wife and two daughters are attempting to colonize themselves in British ways on Brick Lane London
This story is important as it provides and example of extremism and the radicalization of Brick Lane’s Muslim youth . - confusing the daughters’ complacency. There is to be no peaceful solution to life in the UK . for the second generation immigrant or cultural minority. Brick Lane provides a powerful post colonial perspective .“Colonialism is… destructive historical force that shapes not only the political futures of the countries involved, but also the identities of the colonized and the colonizing people”(p.189).