Northern Boy

It's the 1980s. Rafi Aziz is ten years old and lives in a mill town in Lancashire. He's the youngest son in a Pakistani family household, and as his mother reminds him daily, she's given up her dreams to give him and his siblings the best opportunities. But Rafi doesn't want to be an engineer like his Uncle Shaukhat. Nor does he want to play football with Taleeb and his friends. And he absolutely doesn't want to kiss girls.

Flamboyant, dramatic and musically gifted, Rafi wants to be a Bollywood starlet.

But the local Asian community are outraged by his behaviour, and make it their business to tell Rafi's mother exactly what they think. As mother and son pull in different directions, their close relationship is put to the ultimate test.

Spanning five decades, Northern Boy is Rafi's story from boyhood to adulthood. In the changing eras of ABBA, skinheads, the AIDS pandemic and urbanization, Rafi must constantly navigate who he is and where he truly belongs.

An utterly compelling debut on embracing unconventionality contrary to all expectations, Iqbal Hussain's debut novel is a must-read for fans of Matt Cain's joyous Madonna of Bolton, Meera Syal's classic Anita and Me and Paul Mendez's Rainbow Milk.