Chapters 1-2 Summary

The author is an Englishman with a French wife. This relationship suggests to the reader that the author, a journalist, might have had some experience with the immigration laws of Britain described in this novel.

Chapter 1. Little Bee is given her few possessions in a clear plastic bag and told she is free to leave the immigration detention center outside of London where she has lived for the past two years. Little Bee is told she can use the telephone to call for a taxi. There are three other girls in line for the phone when Little Bee joins them. The first is told that the taxi company will not pick up immigrants anymore. Little Bee steps up and calls the taxi company and tells a lie, suggesting that she and her companions are not detainees but cleaners who need a...