‘Burminggaon? Nottinggaon? Biradforrd?’: British Asian Noir Depictions of Bradford

Abstract

Abstract In this article, I examine noir representations of Bradford, that important West Yorkshire city which, as one British-Punjabi character’s mispronunciation suggests, has been transformed by South Asian Muslim migration. I examine a trilogy: M. Y. Alam’s Bradford noir novels Annie Potts is Dead, Kilo and Red Laal (1998−2012), and a tetralogy: A. A. Dhand’s Streets of Darkness, Girl Zero, City of Sinners and One Way Out (2016−2019). These novels explore the biradari or kinship system evoked by Atia Hosain’s character in her neologism ‘Biradforrd’. They also focus, among other matters, on Bradford’s predominantly Mirpuri community from the Azad Kashmir region of northeast Pakistan. I argue that despite their different religious backgrounds, Alam and Dhand are both from the ‘myth of return’ class and generation, and portray from the inside Bradfordians’ ghettoized deprivation, drugs problem and vulnerability to racist and Islamophobic abuse.