Maria Sheikh

Diary of Ali's Prison Shop Maria Sheikh

Ali's Prison Shop is the diary of a young woman named Malika who is faced with the difficult decision of deciding where her cultural loyalties lie. Malika considers herself entirely English and thinks her parents Asian culture is old-fashioned and restrictive. She and her siblings (two sisters and a brother) are the only Asian children in their school and they live in a wholly English area in Manchester in the early 1970s. This diary is mostly based around true happenings. Ups and downs, some funny some serious. Malika's father, Mr Ali buys a small convenience store which quickly becomes his pride and joy. At first, Malika thinks of the shop as a novelty and enjoys the passing custom, however, she slowly grows to resent the shop, she feels as though it's more of a prison. Malika decides to get married, to escape the pressures of life in her Dads shop.