Londonstani. Gautam Malkani
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Londonstani
GAUTAM MALKANI
For my wife Monica and in memory of Mum
‘Londonstani is a bold debut, brimming with energy and authenticity, verve and nerve’
Observer
‘A compelling, impressively sustained, skilfully written and structured novel…exhilarating’
Daily Telegraph
‘Malkani’s debut novel displays all the bravado of his swaggering young protagonists. It’s hard not to be dazzled by the way this novel hurtles us into the rudeboy scene. He demonstrates his sharp eye for the contradictions and absurdities of the pseudo-gangsta life these boys have fashioned for themselves. His writing achieves…real verve and power’
Washington Post
‘A novel that is exceptionally funny and heartrendingly moving…a killer piece of dazzingly original fiction. Londonstani’s tremendous energy and vitality stems from the fact that it does not simplify complexities into black and white and brown, but thrives in the grey areas, where values are tested, questioned, set against each other. Such an infectious, evocative voice as this seems destined to enchant’
Herald
‘The first true twenty-first century British-Asian novel. Dealing not with dreams of the motherland but the British-Asian suburban experience, told through the eyes and mouths of mummy’s boy rudeboys. Londonstani is fast, furious, curious and sobering. No cornershops, no flock wallpapered Indian restaurants, and no sitars and saris. It talks how the streets talk - they may not be the streets you recognise though’
NIHAL ARTHANAYAKE
‘Artful, thought-provoking and strikingly inventive. An impressive, in some respects brilliant, first novel. Londonstani deserves a wide audience’
Los Angeles Times
‘I love this book. Everybody that reads it is gonna be in stitches. It’s written in a way that young Asians speak right now and even if you’re not Asian you’re still gonna get it. This is what goes on’
HARD KAUR, BBC Radio Asian Network
‘Smart, linguistically inventive and very funny’
Times Literary Supplement
‘Malkani captures the soul of a subculture that has spread far beyond his hometown. Londonstani - with all its bling, gore, graphic language - will get the kids’ attention. In a language they understand, innit’
Time magazine
‘With street language and typical rudeboy speech, including the obligatory innit and a liberal dose of swearing, it portrays the power struggle most youngsters were going through 10-15 years ago, but cleverly brings it forwards to the present with the stark reality of how people speak here’
Hounslow Chronicle
‘Londonstani turned my scepticism upside down. It subtly explores the contradictions and complexities of relations within Britain’s black and Asian communities. Malkani’s observations about Britain’s urban modern culture are razor-sharp’
RAGEH OMAAR, New Statesman
‘Written in an ingeniously communicable melange of slang. It’s shocking, ball-grabbing stuff and not designed for the weak-hearted. The most powerful strand of this book is the enormity of peer pressure, the overwhelming expectations of burgeoning masculinity’
Financial Times
‘You need this book in your life’ Panjabi Hit Squad, BBC Radio 1Xtra
‘Undoubtedly the biggest British Asian novel of the millennium. Londonstani is a book that appeals to anyone who feels isolated from the tag their parents gave them and longs to be part of something that makes them feel stronger. Have a read of it. You might just want to hug a rudeboy afterwards’
Asiana magazine
‘Captivating…London’s second-generation Asians are given the Trainspotting treatment’
The New Yorker
‘Malkani has effectively dropped a sociological bombshell with the potential to blow apart bland assumptions about ethnic minorities’
The Times of India
‘Sensational. Profane, outrageous, completely original, Londonstani is an explosive first novel which is infinitely readable. A devastating satire of male insecurity hiding inside middle-class alienation’
Now
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