Tariq Mehmood's Song of Gulzarina is a highly involving novel which looks at the life of Saleem Khan, who migrates from Pakistan to Bradford in the 1960s full of expectation and ends up contemplating suicide bombing in 21st-century Manchester. Mehmood deals with some of the really big questions of our time - race, class, oppression, empire and war - through the eyes of a failed father and lover who nonetheless gains our sympathies.
- Lindsay German, Counterfire
Mehmood is unswerving in his depiction of the racism that existed in Yorkshire mills in the 1970s as well as today's virulent Islamophobia. .... Mehmood's novel is polemical and full of black humour. ... Terror, both state-sponsored and the work of violent extremists, exists and has to be confronted. This is one of the most textured novels I have read about such violence. - Claire Chambers, Huffington Post
On the outset, then, Tariq Mehmood's Song of Gulzarina may seem like a predictable political commentary-cum-fable warning against the constraints of ideology and the violence of imperialism. However, it is both the author's and the characters' acute self-awareness of the familiarity of the plot, and their insistence on stressing the nuances of Saleem's journey rather than the gravity of its end, that make for a compelling read.
- Abeera Khan Kohl, Journal for Body and Gender Research
Song of Gulzarina is a highly impressionable book, for it speaks directly and powerfully to the humanness of the reader. Song of Gulzarina is an absolute
worthy read.
- Lema Abeng-Nsah Dunia, The Reader's Magazine
Tariq Mehmood has written a powerful tale and his voice in the current political climate is important. Through a strong sense of the spoken word, an under-heard narrative gains momentum. This book is pure entertainment but it is also a cautionary tale. A question embedded in a Song. What happens when people are ignored and suppressed for too long? Where does that energy go? It is the reader's gain that this particular writer has put his own spark into Song of Gulzarina. -J Rose, Muscat Tales
