A coming-of-age story set in Birmingham in the 1980s and 1990s, 

 opens a window into a closed migrant community living in a red-light district on the wrong side of the tracks.

The adult world is seen through Osman's eyes as a child: his own devout
Pashtun patriarchal community, with its divide between the world of men and women, living cheek-by-jowl with parallel migrant communities.

Alternative masculinities compete with strict gender roles, and female erasure and honour-based violence are committed, even as empowering female friendships prevail. The stories Osman tells, some fantastical and humorous, others melancholy and even harrowing, take us from the Birmingham of Osman's childhood to the banks of the river Kabul and the river Indus, and, eventually, to the London of his teenage years.

Osman weaves in and out of these worlds, struggling with the dual burdens of racism and community expectations, as he is forced to realise it is no longer possible to exist in the spaces in between.

Product description

Publisher: Canongate Books
ISBN: 9781786893529
Format: Hardback
Number of pages: 368
Weight: 484g
Dimensions:14.5 cm x 22.6 cm

Product details

Yousefzada is a research practitioner at the Royal College of Art, London and a visiting fellow at Cambridge University. He is also commencing a role at the Birmingham School of Art in September 2023, as Professor of Interdisciplinary Practice. His work has been shown at notable international institutions including: Whitechapel Gallery, London; Ikon Gallery, Birmingham (solo 2018); Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; Wapping Project, London; Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio; Ringling Museum, Florida; Lahore Museum, Pakistan; Design Museum, London; Lahore Biennale, Pakistan; and Dhaka Art Summit, Bangladesh.


In his first book, ‘The Go-Between’ (2022) published by Canongate, is set in a closed immigrant community in Birmingham in the 1980s and 1990s. The book explores alternative masculinities competing with strict gender roles, seen through the eyes of a child. This book was long listed for the Polari Prize, winning the Biographers Club Prize and reviewed by Stephen Fry as ‘one of the greatest childhood memoirs of our time’.

Osman Yousefzada

About the author

A portrait of growing up between different worlds.

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