Ours are the Streets by Sunjeev Sahota

Ours are the Streets

Sunjeev Sahota

I found reading this story of the radicalisation of a young British Muslim a very intense experience. I really did seem to be inside the mind of this lost boy. His sense of not belonging and his desperation to find something to believe in - to live or to die for - were overwhelming. But there are no easy cliches here and the ending was ambiguous and unsettling.

Extract
But I'm loving writing this. It's really helping. It's like normally I'm walking round and I'm just confused about how I'm feeling or what I'm thinking. But when I'm writing it's like I'm rummaging about inside myself, and I can just keep on rummaging until I find something that's not far off what it really is I want to say. Ameen.
Parallels
  • The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
  • The Four Lions - the film