The Black Album, £14.95 Revlowed by K.GOVINDAN It is 1989 and that book by Salman Rushdie is about to hit the headlines. Into the maelstrom lands young Shahid.
A second generation Pakistani born and bred in Kent, Shahid flees the family travel agency to seek fulfillment in London student life. We accompany our disorientated but undaunted hero as he negotiates the possibilities of his new world..
Two are presented. One: the fellowship of his intellectually stimulating white lecturer with whom he shares an adoration for Prince hence the book named after a bootleg album) and some orgasmic sex.
Secondly: there's a group of Asian students who combine their disdain for all things western with a fervour that as believers in islam they have identity, purpose and the promise of Paradise.
Sub-cultures
This is also a novel about London and its sub-cultures -a social landscape devas. tated by Thatcherism. From run down lodgings and seedy pubs in derelict Kilburn, to East End council estates where Asian families live in fear of racist abuse, from weekend raves and popping ecstasy in south London The architect of the ruins warehouses, to love trysts in Upper Street Islington - this is Shahid's terrain.
Throughout Kureishi avoids the temptation to caricature Muslim fundamentalism.
When an aubergine is sliced open and in its flesh a divine message is thought to be revealed supporting the fatwa on Rushdie, we laugh at the spectacle and not the faithful.
There are plenty of wry observations and lovely lines weaved into the text, "What sort of people burn books and read aubergines? I'd heard that books were on the way out. I never imagined they would be replaced by vegetables." We sometimes get so caught up in the search for 'where we belong' and 'who we are' that we don't realise that these questions have already been asked and answered in our everyday lives. In this captivating and funny book Kureishi regales, delichts and enchants us with an experience of growing up black in Britain. Brilliant.