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‘Moving’ is the first word that comes to mind to describe Fadia Faqir’s third novel, My Name is Salma.

Bedouin, Salma becomes pregnant before marriage. A fragmented narrative accompanies her through her attempts to come to terms with her imprisonment and the snatching away of her newborn daughter in a harsh, patriarchal Islamic society.

Prison, for Salma, is the way to save her from ‘a bullet between the eyes’, the family retribution for disobeying the code of the community. After eight years of suffering, humiliation and hard labour, she is rescued and moved from one humanitarian group to another, fleeing her vengeful brother via Lebanon, Marseilles and ultimately England.

Even when she reaches Exeter, Salma (now Sally) is still paranoid about the expected bullet between the eyes. With her, we experience the hostility towards aliens in an English town. With humour, patience and humility, she slowly learns to cope with the oddities of English culture and to find a place for herself.

Yet Salma still needs to return to her origins in the Levant to seek her child, Leyla.

Published in paperback by Black Swan in 2008, Fadia Faqir’s novel is a frightening demonstration of how difficult it is for two such different cultures to understand each other.

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