An Englishman, Archie Jones, and a Bengali Muslim named Samad Iqbal, who first met after World War II in Turkey, encounter each other again 30 years later in the North-West London neighborhood where they live with their families. The daughter of Archie and his Jamaican wife falls in love with Samad's radical fundamentalist son. Archie's sister-in-law is a fervent Jehovah's witness. Samad is plagued by guilt over his affair with his children's schoolteacher. And a nearby Jewish family tries to interfere in their lives. In a stew of often competing multicultural elements, Archie, Samad, and their families struggle to find their identities amid the complexities of the 1970s. Zadie Smith calls her acclaimed novel "a utopian view" of race relations: "It's what it might be and what it should be and maybe what it will be." A New York Times "Editors' Choice" for one of the best books of 2000. Nominated in 2001 for a National Book Critics Circle Award.