The slew of reports following the 2001 Bradford Riots, provoked the novelist and academic M.Y. Alam to generate one of his own.
Interviewing the city's British Pakistani men he gathered their views on issues generally prone to misrepresentation. Made in Bradford is the transcript of those wide ranging conversations; a vivid picture of everyday life - from forced marriage, drugs and employment, to racism, political representation, the fall out from the London bombings, faith, freedom and the notion of home and belonging.
In this podcast, recorded onstage at the Ilkley Playhouse, Alam is in conversation with the Yorkshire Post's Nick Ahad.
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M.Y. Alam's interview sessions became much more than the usual researcher and research subject kind of relationship. In some cases, they developed into full blown conversations amongst friends.
"Made In Bradford" compiles a series of transcripts from those conversations and paints a vivid picture of everyday life that reads almost as a counter-narrative to the prevailing direction of current debates.
Here, men talk about issues such as forced marriage, drugs and criminality, employment, racism, political representation, the fall out from the London bombings, faith and freedom, along with the notion of home and belonging.
The openness within the texts is a refreshing antidote to the recent, more widespread and shameful stigmatisation of a people within our own communities.
M.Y. Alam is the author of two novels, Annie Potts is Dead and Kilo, and has had several short stories published. He is also a researcher and teacher at the University of Bradford working in the Department of Social Sciences and Humanities.
Made in Bradford, £8.99, is published by Route Publishing, ISBN: 978-1901927320.The full article contains 380 words and appears in n/a newspaper.
