The Red One by Safia Fazlul

The Red Oneis a novel that explores the topics of marriage, sexual abuse, and gender expectations in the setting of a tight-knit South Asian community in Canada.

Obsessed with her weight and appearance, Nisha, better known as "Azar's beautiful wife," lives a seemingly perfect life in a suburban, upper middle-class community outside Toronto. But the marriage is passionless. By her dominant and unfaithful husband she is unwilling to have a child; she is also haunted by her secret past, when she was sexually abused as a child. She finds escape in shopping sprees and surrounding herself with fake friends, while secretly spiralling into a drug addiction to numb her pains.

When she is asked to help with a charity event, Nisha accepts the challenge, but there she meets a mysterious man she thinks of as the Red One, to whom she's instantly and dangerously attracted. The encounter makes her finally realize that she must face her terrible past and somehow vanquish it. (From Mawenzi House Publishers)

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Safia Fazlul is a Bangladeshi Canadian author and poet based in Toronto. She is also the author of the novelThe Harem.