Sarfraz Manzoor

Greetings from Bury Park

Sarfraz Manzoor was two years old when he arrived in Britain in 1974 with his mother, brother and sister. The family came to join their father- who had left Pakistan a decade earlier seeking a better life for his family- and settled in the Bury Park neighbourhood of Luton. Sarfraz’s father worked on the production line at Vauxhall while his mother worked at home as a seamstress. Sarfraz’s teenage years were a constant battle in reconciling being both British and Muslim and, frustrated by real life Sarfraz sought solace by escaping into the fantasies offered by television and music. Music quickly became a passion but it was not until he was sixteen that his best friend introduced him to the music of a man that would change his life changed forever. Bruce Springsteen - a white, working class American rock singer - articulated everything that Sarfraz had ever felt about escape, realising your ambitions and not letting the best of yourself down. Inspired by Springsteen’s music Sarfraz left Luton to ultimately become the journalist and broadcaster he is today. The book will be essential reading for anyone interested in trying to understand what it means to be Muslim living in Britain today.

In his perceptive, affectionate and timely memoir Sarfraz Manzoor retraces his journey from Lahore to Luton to Ladbroke Grove. Set against the turbulent backdrop of a changing Britain and spanning three decades this is how it feels to not quite belong. Greetings from Bury Park illuminates the hidden joys and public agonies of being a Pakistani Muslim. Original, darkly tender and wryly amusing, the book is an inspiring tribute to the power of music to transcend race and religion - and a touching salute of thanks from one working-class Pakistani Muslim boy to the father who died too soon for his son to make him proud.

A small wonder- like some melancholy refit of Hanif Kureishi’s Buddha of Suburbia where boredom replaces bohemia and real life is only glimpsed in a Bruce Springsteen lyric

Mojo

Beautiful and moving.. a book to make you believe that we are more alike than we know…
... His is a model life for our times

The Times

wonderful

Sunday Times