Good For Nothing

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Such emotional aspects had to be divorced from the reading. We were taught to consider words, rhyme schemes, pentameters and tetrameters instead. Ironically - despite my old supervisor’s efforts - context has always been the first thing I consider in any text.

After all, the tradition of Muslim characters is nothing if not interesting: Shakespeare’s Othello is -in some interpretations - ambiguously racialised as deriving from Muslim Spain. Shelley’s Frankenstein features orientalised depictions of the Ottoman Empire in the passive, submissive Safie. Penguin Random House Children’s is delighted to be publishing Good for Nothing, from UKYA debut author Mariam Ansar, which is set to publish in Spring 2023. World Rights were acquired from Claire Wilson at RCW Literary Agency by Penguin Editor Sara Jafari. I went to mingling events with other British-born Muslims - naively expecting some camaraderie - and found that saying you’re from Bradford got its own set of laughs. Some non-funny jokes. Everyone in your ears: kasmey (I swear), yara (man!), bro. In part she feels responsible for widening pupils’ access to cultural capital, while not talking down to them. Her students know how much she loves Shakespeare (” Miss if you like him so much, why don’t you just marry him?“) but she emphasises her ability to code-switch, using the classroom to talk about everything from the celebrated bard to notorious bars. To the room, her love for teaching young people is obvious. To her students, she says “they should stop commenting on my TikToks”.Nor the mosque attendees of mine and my siblings’ youth, who drew unflattering images of our teachers and flashed them to the class with ease. a love letter to every forgotten northern town, every young person of colour that has struggled to feel understood” I think some of the challenges that came for me were people misunderstanding what I was trying to do. As the writer, you’re going to have this intense attachment to what you’re trying to do. Someone in publishing is thinking about how they’re going to make your book marketable. It’s important for young writers to know you can actually say no to suggestions. Don’t be afraid to put your foot down. Make sure you have a good relationship with your agent or somebody who can fight those fights for you. If you’ve never translated seriously, you don’t really understand what language is’: Pulitzer prize winner Jhumpa Lahiri The synopsis reads: “Eman is the awkward girl whose favourite evenings are spent at home watching soaps with her Nani. Amir is the angry boy who won’t talk about the brother he lost but won’t let his name be forgotten either. Kemi is fast and fierce and beautiful, and knows she deserves as good a shot as anyone else, if only she can get to the starting line.

Absolutely loved this book. I often wished when I was teaching in inner city Bradford 30 years ago that their were more books like this around.Records the default button state of the corresponding category & the status of CCPA. It works only in coordination with the primary cookie. The exercise I was involved in - a weekly seminar named Practical Criticism - revolved around analysing a text without considering its contexts: who wrote it, when did they write it, what socioeconomic factors could they have been responding to? I can understand that. I’m from Bradford: a town in West Yorkshire best known for its large South Asian population, the birthplace of the singer Zayn Malik, many well-respected restaurants, and a certain brand of deprivation-induced delinquency.

Contemporary texts can offer more scope, more depth, more richness: Fatima Farheen Mirza’s A Place For Us and Leila Aboulela’s Bird Summons instantly come to mind. The literary starting point is obvious. It’s a relay which - I feel - begs to be continued.Good for Nothing is a tender, witty and heartfelt coming of age story that follows three teens grappling with grief and police prejudice in the North of England. This rich and warmly written novel redefines small town mentalities and explores the power of friendship and human connection. It is the perfect next read for fans of And the Stars Were Burning Brightly and The Hate U Give. I wanted to create narratives that feel real and that move people because I’m from a community that is underrepresented, but also underprivileged and misunderstood – not just in terms of race – but in class and culture and community.”