With her Muslim hajib and down-turned gaze, Najwa is invisible to most eyes, especially to the rich Arab families whose houses she cleans in London. Twenty years earlier, Najwa, then an aristocratic Westernized Sudanese, could have never imagined this new life. She was a student at the University of Khartoum but her focus in life was on fashionable clothes, pop music, and parties. When a politcal coup forces Najwa's family into exile in London, she soon finds herself orphaned and completely alone. For the first time in her life, Najwa turns to the solace and companionship among the woman at the mosque, and when she adopts the hijab, she begins to see the world anew. Then Najwa meets Tamer, the intense, lonely younger brother of her employer, and they find a common bond in her newfound faith and slowly, silently, begin to fall in love. Written with directness, simplicity, and force, Minaret is a stunning and insightful novel about one woman's journey toward spiritual piece.
