Gautam Malkani, Londonstani
By day, Gautam Malkani writes about economics for Britain’s Financial Times. By night, he’s spent the last three years working on his superb first novel, Londonstani, a searing look into Britain’s emerging desi culture.
When the book begins, we meet Jas, the stammering 18 year old narrator who has recently fallen in with a group known as rudeboys: Macho middle class South Asian kids who tool around London in high end cars, break laws, trash their parents’ traditions, and try to come of age in a world where the only thing that truly matters is how much flashy bling you’ve got on your back. Jas falls under the sway of a dangerous mobster, and in love with a Muslim girl. She’s the one girl that his gangland friends and his family decree that he can’t have.
Download/Listen [MP3]
Buy Londonstani: Amazon.ca | Chapters/Indigo
July 19th, 2006 at 4:19 am
congrats to harper collins, cathi & foursevens on this initiative. looking forward to listening.
July 19th, 2006 at 11:52 am
Congratulations, Cathi!
July 19th, 2006 at 12:36 pm
Thanks guys! It was a lot of fun. The books are great and it’s really interesting talking to the authors. Although at this point there’s just been one! Gautam was very approachable and really knew how to talk about his book.
July 22nd, 2006 at 5:12 am
Fun and thought-provoking. Would make a great teaching tool in Creative Writing and Contemporary Literature courses.
July 23rd, 2006 at 8:09 am
Great prelude to reading with the added texture of some of the authors thoughts and perspective. Congratulations.
July 23rd, 2006 at 9:10 am
Enjoyed this very much. Very interesting to hear the writers talk - especially at this length. Look forward to the next one.
July 27th, 2006 at 7:00 am
[…] Cathi Bond, of the Sniffer, has just launched a new podcast, in conjunction with Harper Collins Canada, called: The Prosecast … interviews with authors or recently-published books. The first episode, with Londonstani writer Gautam Malkani was great, and taught me me how to speak like Ali G, and some new bad words too. Filed under: writing, podcasting, media […]
August 1st, 2006 at 7:38 am
Great to be able to hear Gautam talk about his work. So much different than reading a review in the paper. I’m going to buy the book and take it on holiday - thanks!
August 9th, 2006 at 10:05 am
Got here thanks to Dose. It is a very interesting initiative. Though the interviews are set up by the publisher, they in fact sound less like book-plugging than interviews on talk shows. There’s an honesty to these interviews, probably because of Cathi’s attitude but also because of the format. Sounds better than an interview on CBC Radio or PRI.
It’d be nice to have more information in the accompanying notes, including links, excerpts, possibly pictures, online purchasing…
October 24th, 2006 at 5:31 am
[…] Malkani’s performance is excellent. Tall and slight, and perhaps slightly geekier-looking than you might expect, he speaks with confidence. His voice is that of a typical middle-class South Londoner, but it is flecked here and there with telling traces of his Hounslow upbringing. So even while he is explaining the genesis of the novel, in his Cambridge PhD dissertation on South Asian identity, the rapid-fire desi rudeboy never seems far from the surface. […]
November 26th, 2006 at 3:11 pm
You need to get past the writing style to delve into “Londonstani.” Another novel “Nexus” by Deborah Morrison & Arvind Singh (ISBN: 0978107004) might also prove worth your while.