PenguinReaders' Group
 

Featured Author

The Boy with the Topknot

This month our Featured Author, Sathnam Sanghera, answers questions from The Walthamstow Book Group from London.

Q: You said at the end of the book that you were still looking for love. Would you prefer you next girlfriend to have read your book or not?

A: Good question. When I recently had to re-read the book, for copy-editing reasons, what struck me about it was how, as well as being a love letter to my family, especially my Mum, it is also a massive singles advert. It wasn't deliberate. And actually, it's not helpful. It's odd meeting strangers who know so much about you. You embark on what you think is a witty anecdote and they stop you with "I know ... it was in your book. Page 36". I spent so much time and energy worrying about getting the details of my family story right, making sure I didn't offend anyone in any way, I wish I'd spent a bit more time worrying about invading my own privacy. Too late now though. And a lot has happened since, so it's becoming less of a problem ... But to answer the question, I don't mind people reading it. Writing it solved many more problems than it created.

Q: Do you have any idea how your book has been received by the wider Punjabi community?

A: There has been a great deal of response from various Asian communities - and also, bizarrely, from many Jewish and Catholic readers who seem to identify with the issues of emotional blackmail, overbearing families, overfeeding mothers etc. And it has been 98 per cent positive. There have been the most incredible and unexpected emails and letters, with people saying that reading the book made them realise a close relative had a mental illness, that reading it made them finally ask parents about their history, that they have given the book to their families as a precursor to telling them they were going to marry someone they love, rather than someone of their family's choosing. But there have been a few brickbats too. The usual complaint is that I have been too critical about the Punjabi community. But these people have usually not understood the humour of the book, or have simply not read it. If they did so, they'd discover a balanced picture. Also, our community is only just discovering how to talk about itself, so such responses are inevitable.

Q: Can you see yourself writing a novel in the future?

A: Yes. I'd like to. But at the moment I'm very much enjoying not writing a book. It's a lonely, difficult, fattening activity and not the meaning of life. Think I'll get around to it eventually though.

Q: As someone who’s never been there before would you recommend a trip to Wolverhampton and what are its current tourist hot spots?

A: Ha. I would totally recommend it. And I suggest you go and visit the statue of Prince Albert sitting astride a horse in the middle of Queen Square. It's probably the only thing – apart from the church – that has remained unchanged in the city centre. It was there when Wolverhampton was a great industrial town, at the forefront of the Industrial Revolution. It survived the sanctioned post war vandalism when many of Wolverhampton's greatest buildings were destroyed in the name of progress. It witnessed the late sixties when Wolves, with its racial strife, became Britain’s answer to Harlem, and the seventies, when Wolverhampton was briefly cool with Slade riding high in the pop charts, and Wolves doing well in the football league. And it provides a focus for people now. For fresh immigrants attracted to town, unable to pronounce street names, it is somewhere they can agree to meet people. For drunken students, it is something to climb on a Friday night: an object on which to place the obligatory road cone. And it is a something against which tourists – and they really do exist – can take a picture to mark their trip. The story goes that when it was unveiled by Queen Victoria, the sculptor realised he'd given the horse four front legs and promptly shot himself (not true). The other story is that on her way to Wolves, Queen Victoria asked for the curtains in her carriage to be drawn because she was so offended by the view.