WHO WILL REMAIN
—Kasim
ALI
out
JULY
17TH,
2025
A gripping, powerful new novel following a young man as he weighs up the life of safety that his parents want for him and another path on the streets outside his door, from the acclaimed author of Good Intentions
Amir has grown up in Alum Rock, Birmingham, under the care of his sensible older brother, Bilal, and his cousin Saqib, born just a few days before Amir. Alum Rock can be a troubled place, but Amir has managed to keep his head down, worked hard and stayed out of trouble … until now.
When Saqib is killed in a gang fight and Bilal announces his engagement, Amir suddenly loses the two men who keep him grounded. Amir’s university grades are collapsing, he’s running out of money, and pressure mounts from every direction. As tensions flare, the friends left around him start to draw Amir into their more dangerous pursuits, and the family ties that have bound him so completely begin to unravel. Amir decides he only has himself to rely on and must take his future into his own hands.
This is a blistering story of social expectations and social condemnation, of dead ends and divided loyalties, and of what’s left behind when you have nothing left to lose.
GOOD
INTENTIONS
—Kasim ALI
An unforgettable debut novel about first love, family obligation and finding your way.
As Nur’s family counts down to midnight on New Year’s Eve, Nur is watching the clock more closely than most: he has made a pact with himself, and with his girlfriend, Yasmina, that at midnight he will finally tell his Pakistani parents the truth. That he has built a life with a woman he loves and she is Black.
Nur wants to be the good son his parents ask him to be, and the good boyfriend Yasmina needs him to be. But as everything he holds dear is challenged, he is forced to ask, is love really a choice for a second-generation immigrant son like him?
Kasim Ali was born and raised in Alum Rock, Birmingham, where he spent the first eighteen years of his life, at which point he left to study a degree in English. Over the years, he has lived in London, Nottingham, and Newcastle, but still thinks of Birmingham as the place he's from. He has had a short story long-listed for the B4ME short story prize, has written fiction for BBC Radio 4, and has a column at The Bookseller. Currently, he works as an editor in publishing. Good Intentions was his first novel, Who Will Remain his second.
For enquiries, please contact Juliet Pickering: juliet@blakefriedmann.co.uk