Chanu

Outer characterization

Chanu is Nazneen’s husband in the novel Brick Lane by Monica Ali. When he and Nazneen marry, he is forty years old and has been living in London since he was twenty-four (p. 24). He was born in Bangladesh and has a degree in English Literature from Dhaka University. His marriage to Nazneen is arranged, and they have three children: Raqib, who dies as an infant, Shahana, and Bibi. Not much is known about his extended family, but he has relatives in Bangladesh. 

Nazneen describes Chanu’s appearance as follows: 

She scrutinized his face, round as a ball, the blunt-cut thinning hair on top, and the dense eyebrows that crawled across his brow. […] It was not a handsome face […] but it was kind. His mouth, always on duty, always moving, was full-lipped and generous, without a hint of cruelty. His eyes, small and beleaguered beneath those thick brows, were anxious or far away, or both. Now that they were closed she could see the way the skin puckered up a...