This Green and Pleasant Land: Winner of The Diverse Book Awards 2020

Accountant Bilal Hasham and his journalist wife Mariam plod along contentedly in the sleepy, chocolate box Dorset village they’ve lived in for ten years.

Then Bilal is summoned to his mother’s bedside in Birmingham. Mrs Sakheena Hasham knows she is not long for this world. She has a final request. Instead of whispering her prayers in her dying moments, she instructs her son: You must go home to your village, and you must build a mosque.

Mariam is horrified. The villagers are outraged. How can a grieving Bilal choose between honouring his beloved mum’s last wish and preserving everything held dear in the village he calls home? But it turns out home means different things to different people.

Battle lines are drawn and this traditional little community becomes the colourful canvas on which the most current and fundamental questions of identity, friendship, family and togetherness are played out.

What makes us who we are, who do we want to be, and how far would we go to fight for it?