Winterbourne. Zhabed Comes To Stay

It is 2008. Zhabed arrives as a student and unintentionally creates ripples in several women's lives. He faces a strange world in which women appear to have more freedom than back home. Choices dangle tantalisingly in front of his neighbours. Do the women dare to branch out? And what would the consequences be for those around them? Tea, and an occasional coffee, mixes with Buddhism, Islam, feminism, anorexia, students, children and sex. ‘Is it possible to stay with one man for the rest of your life?’ one woman asks. Another seeks her Path.
At the outset several neighbouring households lead very separate day to day lives in Winterbourne Avenue (a thirties semi-detached row). A lecturer lives next door to a student house alongside a young working family. All is not as well as it seems on the corner where a family lives with two boys, a father working in the City and a mother at home. An elderly Buddhist man looks down from his flat. When Zhabed arrives at the student house connections evolve between the households. The everyday has its suspenseful moments shot through with sexual dalliances and borders at times on mystical imaginings. There is a follow up story five years later .Feminist politics yes but also a comment on the education and economic systems.
Now retired and living near the Pyrenees, Ellen brings to bear her own experiences of work in education, family therapy, life, and relationships. She worked in Pakistan in 2007-8.