This Green and Pleasant Land

SHORTLISTED FOR THE DIVERSE BOOK AWARDS'Tender, challenging and as warm as it was razor-sharp' Beth O'Leary'If you've read Joanna Cannon I think you'll love this' Simon Savidge'A sublimely witty and touching story' Jonathan Coe The standout new novel by acclaimed author Ayisha Malik - perfect for fans of David Nicholls and Candice Carty-Williams.In the sleepy village of Babel's End, trouble is brewing. Bilal Hasham is having a mid-life crisis. His mother has just died, and he finds peace lying in a grave he's dug in the garden. His elderly Auntie Rukhsana has come to live with him, and forged an unlikely friendship with village busybody, Shelley Hawking. His wife Mariam is distant and distracted, and his stepson Haaris is spending more time with his real father.Bilal's mother's dying wish was to build a mosque in Babel's End, but when Shelley gets wind of this scheme, she unleashes the forces of hell. Will Bilal's mosque project bring his family and his beloved village together again, or drive them apart? Warm, wise and laugh-out-loud funny, This Green and Pleasant Land is a life-affirming look at love, faith and the meaning of home.

I absolutely devoured this book . . . It was tender, challenging and as warm as it was razor-sharp - I was in awe of Ayisha's ability to cut you to the core in one paragraph and make you laugh in the next. Every single character was fascinating, and so many of them stayed with me after finishing the book that I was basically carrying the whole village round in my head for a while . . ., Beautifully written. If you've read Joanna Cannon I think you'll love this, A gorgeous, funny, smart, uplifting story about seeking unity during times of division. Wish I could prescribe it to the country, I have to say it's not often I read a book as thoughtful, funny, excellently written and important as this one. I've always been a fan of Ayisha's writing, but this book takes her work to another level. I really hope this becomes a huge hit, because it deserves to be read by everyone. Witty, insightful, and shot through with pathos, Ayisha Malik's This Green and Pleasant Land is the prescient tale of Bilal, a middle-class British muslim and his quest to fulfil his mother's dying wish that he builds a mosque in the sleepy English village of Babbel's End. This book is laugh out loud funny, but is so much more than that. It challenges out preconceptions and our prejudices about what it means to be British in today's world. As such, in these turbulent times, it is also an important book. It's Malik's best work to date, and more importantly, for me, it's the standout book of the year, A modern comedy of manners ... Malik's great gift is to present seemingly insoluble issues of faith and intolerance in a light, accessible manner

Ayisha Malik is a writer and editor, living in South London. She holds a BA in English Literature and a First Class MA in Creative Writing. Her novels Sofia Khan is Not Obliged and The Other Half of Happiness, starring 'the Muslim Bridget Jones', were met with great critical acclaim, and Sofia Khan is Not Obliged was chosen as 2019's Cityread book. Ayisha was a WHSmith Fresh Talent Pick, shortlisted for the Asian Women of Achievement Award and Marie Claire's Future Shapers Awards. Ayisha is also the ghost writer for The Great British Bake Off winner, Nadiya Hussain.