Twenty Minutes

By Daniyal Mueenuddin and abridged by Richard Hamilton. This love story about bridging the cultural divide, set mainly in Paris, centres on Sohail, the young heir to an industrial empire in Pakistan, and his American girlfriend. Helen, brought up by her single mother, is working her way through university. Although the pair are deeply in love, they are culturally and socially poles apart, and when Sohail's elegant and chic mother Rafia meets Helen for the first time, a power struggle ensues. Read by Shiv Patel.