Gautam Malkani has been called a male Zadie Smith and a Muslim Irvine Welsh, but the six-figure advance this debut novel reportedly earned him should temper any pique these burdensome labels may raise for the Financial Times reporter-turned-novelist. His tale about London’s “Rude Boys,” a breed of young Muslim men jockeying for respect in their ethnically divided neighborhoods, is loaded with the colorful slang that helped name these chaps, making for an engrossing and enlightening glimpse into a cultural phenomenon that is part of Britain’s new face.
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