My Beautiful England - Tapa blanda

"beautifully written." --The San Francisco Book Review

Three women from different countries meet at a language school in the north of England and form an unusual bond in a poignant, moving look at the human stories behind immigrationShe didn’t want to tell Mai that England as they knew it was just a dream. She didn’t want to tell her sister that the beautiful England they had spoken of didn’t exist.Su, a Thai bride, comes to England after the tsunami, armed with a book calledMy Beautiful England. But she finds herself in a deprived northern town where torn sofas are parked in the gardens of boarded up houses. Living with her aging husband, Su tries to become "Englishised," but constant visions of the tsunami and her Thai superstitions clash with English life. While out shopping for mango, Su suffers racial abuse, and realizes England is not the dream place she had hoped for. Samina is from Pakistan and feels trapped in an arranged marriage. Living with her new husband and domineering mother-in-law in Paradise Street, she longs to be like other western women, independent and free. When she joins the local language school, she begins to wear western clothes and calls herself Sammy but soon realizes that she is neither English, nor Pakistani. Lenka lives in a women's refuge with her daughter, hiding from her Polish husband. Together the three women build a strong friendship at the local language center. United in their quest for English, all three women discover what it's like to be a foreigner in England.