For Selvon, Ardan and Yusuf, growing up under the towers of Stones Estate, summer means what it does anywhere: football, music and freedom. But now, after the killing of a British soldier, riots are spreading across the city, and nowhere is safe. While the fury swirls around them, Selvon and Ardan remain focused on their own obsessions, girls and grime. Their friend Yusuf is caught up in a different tide, a wave of radicalism surging through his local mosque, threatening to carry his troubled brother, Irfan, with it.

‘A novel that doesn’t flinch, and demands change right now’ Ali Smith
‘A novel so of this moment that you don’t even realize you’ve waited your whole life for it’ Marlon James

WINNER OF THE INTERNATIONAL DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE, THE JHALAK PRIZE, AND THE AUTHORS’ CLUB BEST FIRST NOVEL AWARD
LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE
SHORTLISTED FOR THE GOLDSMITHS PRIZE AND THE GORDON BURN