Over the past 10 years Hanif Kureishi has charted the gradual widening of the gulf between fundamentalist Islam and Western values. Starting with The Black Album, Kureishi portrayed the ongoing argument between Islam and Western liberal values, between Islamic certainty and Western rational scepticism. By the time he was writing the short sotry, My Son the Fanatic, the break was complete - there was no longer any attempt by the fundmentalists to find any common ground with Western culture.

The outbreak of the Iraq war and its aftermath, plus the recent bombings in London, have stimulated Kureishi to write further about this great divide between the East and the West, and this volume collects Kureishi's writings from the past 10 years which have have dealt with this subject, charting Islam's disengangemnt from dialogue with the West.

The volume also contains a new piece, written especially for this book, which brings Kureishi's analysis of the situation right up to date.