The Go-Between

A Portrait of Growing Up Between Different Worlds

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The Go-Between

By: Osman Yousefzada

Narrated by: Mikhail Sen

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About this listen

A coming-of-age story set in Birmingham in the 1980s and 1990s, The Go-Between 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. The orthodox attend a mosque down the road from the prostitutes and pimps. Children balance Western school teachings with cultural traditions.

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.

Witty

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Critic reviews

"A beautifully observed and funny book." (Guardian)

"Compelling and humane." (Sathnam Sanghera)

"This is one of those audiobooks that you can't stop listening to, punchy fairytale of determination, ably narrated by the actor Mikhail Sen.'" (Christina Hardyment, The Times)

Most relevant

Fascinating insight into the Muslim community in Bonsall Green in the 1980's
As a woman, made me very glad I was not brought up in that community. It is so restricting.
Well read but apart from speaking in the Pakistani accent none of the characters sounded as if they came from that area.
Yorkshire, cockney, anywhere but near Birmingham!