Akram's war

by Nadim Safdar

One night, Akram Khan walks out of his house towards an appointed time and place where he is supposed to detonate a bomb that will end his life and that of many innocent bystanders. As he wanders through the town he encounters Grace, whose life has been marred just as his has, forming an unlikely closeness borne of need and necessity. Akram tells Grace about his seemingly inexorable journey towards radicalization: a childhood within the tight-knit Pakistani community, his complex friendships among outcasts, his disastrous years in the army, and his empty arranged marriage to a woman who remains a stranger. Delicately drawn, Akram's War is an honest and shocking kaleidoscopic portrait of contemporary Britain, and of the ways in which the twists and turns of fate can scar and mark a life.

Genres: Fiction

240 pages, Paperback

Published May 5, 2016

Reviews

[Barbara · Rating 5 out of 5]

How is it possible that such a moving and high impact novel as 'Akram's War' has so few reviews even a few years after it was published? How does it not have a list as long as your arm of awards and nominations? How did something so good receive so little attention?

Maybe I'm wrong. I'm reading this four years after it was published. I'd rate it up there with the likes of Mohsin Hamid's 'The Reluctant Fundamentalist'.

Is it possible that people just aren't comfortable with admitting they've read a book and found themselves sympathetic to the story of a would-be suicide bomber and a prostitute whose had her daughter taken into care? Is that just a step too far?

We join Akram late one night, wearing his army uniform. He's an Afghan vet, a Seargent honourably discharged after a Taliban shot out his knee. As he sets out to wander the streets of his city, he comes across Grace, hobbling in her high heels, and accepts her offer to go home with him. Through the night, the two tell their stories. Akram's is a tale of growing up poor and brown in the Midlands in a neighbourhood of mixed races. Some of his friends are white kids, others from his own community. The skinheads beat him up but his best friend is a white lad whose dad is a racist. Then there's an albino Muslim boy and a pervy older boy. They are a fascinating bunch. Akram and his best friend sign up for the army and get sent to Afghanistan. It's not easy being a Muslim in the British army.

Grace's story is a sad one. She got pregnant and social services tried again and again to take ber daughter Britney away from her. I'm not entirely sure when Akram realises that Grace is the ex-lover of his best friend, who laughingly called himself 'Umm Britney' to the locals in Afghanistan.

I loved the growing friendship between Akram and Grace. I wanted them to be happy despite knowing that this story was heading to self-destruction.

The ending is intentionally ambiguous. It can't be a 'spoiler', can it, if I admit that I don't actually know what happened? I know what I wanted to happen, and I thank the author for leaving me that tiny space into which I can choose my interpretation.

I loved this book and I recommend it highly.

[David Kenvyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is a very brave author who makes the central character of his book a Jihadist suicide-bomber. But that is exactly what Nadim Safdar does. This is a very careful examination of , someone’s state of mind, of the factors that prepare someone for such a fateful, fatal decision.

Considering that we know, from the very start of the book, exactly what Akram plans to do, Nadim Safdar has created a sympathetic and believable figure which is a considerable achievement. We also come to like Grace and Adrian, because of their flaws, because they are not perfect, because, like Akram, their lives have been difficult and fraught with mental and physical pain. There are other characters who are much more difficult to like. Mustafa hovers on the brink of likeability but, to my mind, does not manage to cross the line. Bobby and Azra are just plain reprehensible, as is Adrian’s father, Chav, a skinhead and a racist who terrorizes his local community.

Nadim Safdar does not offer any excuses for his characters, but he does take the trouble to explain them and that may help us to understand the country in which we live. One of the underlying themes of the book is the racism that is endemic in the host community. Safdar shows us a white community that has been written off, that has no hope, who cannot aspire to improving their lives and whose dignity is dependent upon treating others as inferior to themselves. This has the inevitable effect of making the persecuted community seek ways to defend themselves, falling back on the values of their religion, which become distorted in this process of self-assertion.

Safdar does not present the Pakistani community as blameless. He puts the term gora which is pejorative into the mouths of his characters to describe the white English majority, as he uses the term Paki in the mouths of his white characters. Do not expect this to be a comfortable read, because it is not. That is the whole point. It is a story that is very much written to explain its time, and it succeeds in that purpose.

I am not going to go into great detail about the plot, because that would spoil the development of the story. It is enough to say that every single character in this book is broken in some way, and not necessarily just metaphorically. It is a story that deals with the physical and psychological damage that has been done to people over the last thirty or so years. I do not even recall Margaret Thatcher being mentioned in the story, but her legacy looms large over the communities that Safdar describes. All the major characters in this story belong to the underclass. This is a lament for the way in which people have been written off, and for how they turn to extremism in their despair.

Safdar presents us with a picture of the world in which we live, the world that produced Brexit and Trump, and Jihadism. It is not an easy read.

[Fadillah · Rating 3 out of 5]

And the more I say the Bismillah, the more it seems necessary. It is instinctive, important. It reminds me of the vastness of I, a mobile dot under the spread diaphragm of a ceaseless heaven.
- Nadim Safdar, Akram's War
.
.
The book started with Grace’s monologue as the first chapter and followed by Akram’s decription about his life, wife , parents and ultimately his faith. The plot is not necessarily in a linear plot as it jumped back and forth whenever Akram is narrating his life to Grace. However, it is easy to follow. There is a hint of rawness in the experience that has been described by the author , being born from an immigrant parent himself in order to build Akram character in this book. Being part of the Pakistani Family in the UK, we saw the journey Akram undertook in discovering his connection with this country. Often, his past always to revolve around his identity and how much he stood out from these ‘gora/gori’ , his brown-ness that caused him to be bullied by racist pricks in his school. Then Akram has become a bit rebellious by refusing to work at his parent’s shop and rejected Azra’s hand that has been selected by his parents. I treat this book as an immigrant literature - because Akram never felt he really belonged. He does not have any connection with his parents’s homeland, Pakistan and he does not felt that he is fully accepted in the british society either. Akram then eventually joined an army and that’s where the story took us to another journey. While i enjoyed this story but i cant help but feel that many South Asian author especially Man love to fetishizes white woman in their story. In this book, Akram felt comfortable having a relationship with Grace, a prostitute but at the same time have not yet consummating his marriage with Azra. The
comparison he made between Grace and Azra sometimes is out of line which is sort of demonizing her wife for behaving like a good muslim woman. Overall, this is a decent novel. I ultimately enjoyed Akram monologue about his belief and God. I think that part alone is truly amazing. Ultimately, i would recommend this for the immigrant experience alone - the helplessness in overcoming racial
prejudices, the sense of belonging and the question of patriotism and the clashing dynamic between religion and serving your country first.
.

[Alyssia Cooke · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a brave book. Not many authors try to make a suicide bomber a relatable lead character and there's probably a reason for that. When the main secondary character is a prostitute fighting for the right to see her daughter in all the wrong ways, you have a fairly explosive mix. Yet Nadim Safdar writes with great empathy here and you can't help but feel some sympathy with both of the characters, even as you can see that their own choices have led them to where they are.

I admit, I found the first third of the book very slow going. The sections that revolved around Akram's childhood didn't really grab me, but I found that the pace picked up quickly once he reached adulthood. Safdar doesn't shy away from unpleasant realities, whether that be war, racism or broken families. I found Grace's tale particularly poignant and it shines a stark light on how difficult it is to work the system when you don't have the education or the support systems in place to help you. I'd have loved to have read more about Grace, perhaps from her daughter's perspective, but what you get is very well written.

I think the main thing I took away from this is that we are all lost and broken in some way, and life isn't as black and white as we might like it to be. We know from the start that Akram is planning on committing an act of terrorism, but he isn't depicted as evil or even bad. Just broken and lost. Grace was undoubtedly not the best mother in the world. We don't know how much of what social have suggested is true, but we do know she truly loves her daughter and doesn't want to lose her. She isn't mad or bad. She's broken. She's been failed by the system and has run out of options.

This is a thought provoking and challenging read that forces you to see from an unusual perspective. Safdar doesn't make excuses for his characters failings and choices, but he does offer the background; the cultural tensions, the expectations and the fears of both sides of the equation. It's a very different novel and one that will stick with me for quite a while.

[Neve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not sure how to describe this... I would 100% recommend but it is like a metal punch in the gut

[Elisabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book showed the cycle of trauma for many characters in this book and how it leads to the main character Akram ultimately becoming a home grown jihadist terrorist. You always know where the book is going but that didn't detract for me, but helped me be interested in the journey. I was surprised to read the SMH review which said it was soap opera. The story line is contrived - but it is fiction after all. I found the characters all very rich and complex. It is very sad but I learned and enjoyed and was pleased to have read this.

[Jenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting read, revealing how easily a lost and lonely young Pakistani man, raised in Britain, becomes radicalised.

[Blodeuedd Finland · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the story of Akram, on his way to a suicide bombing. But then he meets Grace. And at first I am all, what made you stop? And we find out. He tells her his story, and she tells him hers.

Akram was never a fundamentalist. He had an ok homelife. Sure the kids at school called him a Paki, but then kids are idiots. He went on with his life, he even joined the army (since they pay you for it), and he even fight in Afghanistan. He made a good friend, who he had never liked before. But war makes your life fall apart. And his home life turned into a mess too when his parents arranged a marriage for him.

Grace was a mess from the start. Hooking. Mental issues. A kid that the social service took. She was broken. While he just gave up, she tried, and failed.

Even with the bomb he was never a believer. He was just lost. Though the end, I wonder about the end.

It was an interesting story, there are many roads that leads to his road. And the only reason I could like him was because he was not a bad man. He was a fool who did not even want this. He was a coward. Which ultimately makes it a sad story.

[Judith · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really interesting read about growing up within a Pakistani community in the West Midlands and of the social and familial pressures to conform both within and outside the community. The novel traces Akram's life from childhood to joining the British army to his last journey as a suicide bomber. On his final journey he meets Grace, who has her own problems and both will find a connection by the end of the novel.

Interesting characters and a very good story - well worth a read.

I was fortunate enough to be sent a review copy of the novel by Newbooks/Nudge.

[zespri · Rating 3 out of 5]

Akram has a date with his destiny, and we are party to his back story as he befriends another outcast and shares his story with her before the inevitable happens....

Both have been marred by life, and a tenderness and trust is formed as they recognise the need in each other.

It's a sad little story, but another little insight into contemporary Britain.

[Sarah Stahl · Rating 1 out of 5]

A very different book to something I would nornally read. I didn't overly enjoy the plot line but did want to find out what happened in the end. Interesting just not sure this type of book is for me.