A Match Made in Heaven: British Muslim Women Write about Love and Desire, Paperback

Star-studded and beautifully written, this collection offers diverse stories about love and desire by South Asian-heritage British Muslim women authors, including Ayisha Malik (Sofia Khan Is Not Obliged) and Shelina Janmohamed (Love in a Headscarf). Although outsiders often expect Muslim women to be timid, conservative, or submissive, the reality is different. While some of these authors express a quiet piety and explore poignant situations, others use black humor and biting satire, or play with possibilities. Still others shade into the territory of a Muslim Fifty Shades of Grey, creating grey areas where the mainstream media sees only black and white. If grooming-gang scandals grab headlines, characters are more scandalized by suitors' sloppy personal grooming. Finding the right crimson lipstick for a date or the perfect power outfit for meeting a cheating ex-husband are commoner preoccupations than the news. Stylish but far from shallow, the stories also reflect on migration, racism, arranged marriage, gender differences, lesbian desire, bearding, and many other subjects.

About author(s):Claire Chambers teaches postcolonial literature the University of York. Nafhesa Ali is a sociologist who researches gender, age, the life course, and methods. Richard Phillips is a geographer whose research interests include contemporary multiculturalism and the world after Empire.