Review: Northern Boy: A big Bollywood dream. A small-town chance.

Northern Boy: A big Bollywood dream. A small-town chance. by Iqbal Hussain
My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Growing up in a community where racism and exclusion are part of daily life makes it challenging to embrace your authentic self. What if being true to yourself exposes you to even more bigotry from the very community you identify with? What if the discrimination comes from within?

Northern Boy follows the story of Rafi Aziz, a ten-year-old Pakistani Muslim growing up in the northern town of Blackburn Lancashire. With a love for music, and Bollywood's vibrant culture of song and dance, shaping much of his early years, Rafi struggles to understand why he must leave this part of himself behind as he transitions to secondary education. Through the lens of his adult self's memories, the book weaves a rich tapestry of family, love, loss, and the cultural taboos faced by all those part of a close-knit but very conservative community.

The one thing that really strikes you when reading Northern Boy is that it feels, in part, almost autobiographical. While the story is fictional you can tell that the life is one that the author has lived. It’s too real not to be. It’s the little details almost too random to be fictional that really ensnare this story in your heartstrings. Rafi is just adorable. Often, when books are written from a dual perspective, the child’s viewpoint can feel too mature. Rafi’s journey, instead, is beautifully captured with a child’s innocence, which is no small feat given that many of the topics are far from it.

Through Rafi’s eyes, we experience the sheer terror of childhood bullying, the rise of the skinhead culture so prevalent in the early ‘80s and the fear of National Front (a far-right fascist political party in the UK that exploited concerns around Asian migration at the time). Within the family, hard topics such as the fear of joblessness due to Thatcherite reforms, the pain and alienation of leaving your homeland and the pressure of finding a husband while barely a teenager yourself are all described from the viewpoint of Rafi’s childlike naivety. As well, the struggle to come to terms with your own sexuality in the face of potential rejection by those you love the most is beautifully and sympathetically handled. All this while living in fear of judgement laden on you by your very community and neighbours.

All of the above may sound grim reading, and while the twin themes of loss and regret wind their way throughout, the overall feeling is one of love, warmth, hope, and vibrancy. The soul-stirring need to follow your dreams and to be a ‘butterfly amongst the bricks’ shines through. This book devastated me. I laughed, I cried and it moved me in a way that I never ever expected. While I loved the fine details, such as actual Bollywood songs and artists and the real-life events that affected the area woven into the story, it is the emotional depth of the story that truly lingers. Northern Boy is one of those rare books that will stay with me, and I am incredibly glad that I chose to pick it up.

Thank you NetGalley and Unbound Publishing for providing me with an e-arc - all opinions are my own


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