Rate this book

Ours Are The Streets (2000)

by Sunjeev Sahota(Favorite Author)

3.27 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

0330515802 (ISBN13: 9780330515801)

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

Picador USA

review 1: An intriguing and sympathetic look into the life of a young Muslim man who decides to become a suicide bomber. This book was very unusual, and it took me a little while to get into the style in which it was written (which uses his Northern dialect), and is quite disjointed as a letter to his wife, his baby daughter, any one who will listen about why he has chosen to go down the path he has done. I did actually like the style after a while, as it leaves a lot to the reader's imagination about the end of the book and what is going on in the protagonist's mind and how much is real and imagined. I loved the descriptions of his trip back to Pakistan and I thought this was a novel viewpoint into what it means to be a Muslim today.
review 2: Laura An interesting premi... morese, well handled. I would possibly have rated it 4 stars if the jumping back and forwards between his present life in Sheffield and a trip to Pakistan & Afghanistan had been clearer and some of the language less confusing. I liked the fact that it was not purely a sense of righteous anger behind his decision to turn terrorist, more a believable mix of alienation, a lack of belonging and of hope in his life so far and for the future (limited job prospects, marriage and child too young, his parents'lack of progression) colluding to create a young man responsive to the collective identity, belonging and pride offered by family & militants in Asia . The author succeeds in making the feelings around cultural and ethnic identity understandable even if the ultimate acts of various characters turn out to be horrific. Pacey, interesting and thought provoking. less

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