Good For Nothing

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My sister’s retelling of three South Asian women, clad in salwar kameez, sharing a purse to buy themselves chocolates. My students, arguing with such colourful aggression, and wondering why I can’t tell when they’re joking. Then there are the stories from Pakistan, Latvia, Romania, Croatia and - oh, just down the road. For Ansar, part of giving dignity is allowing communities to exist as they are, in a way that is unsanitised and uncensored “like the boy in your classroom that you always found so annoying”. Influenced by kitchen sink realism, one of the protagonists in Good for Nothing, Amir, embodies this: “I want people to recognise the humanity of people and qualities that can seem abrasive, or angry, but are actually just misunderstood”. Family restaurants boom with shoddily planned weddings and an extensive mithai collections. The barbers are perpetually busy, the Asian supermarket is manned by the wise and the vicious. Young people are dealt their silent struggles and go about their business under the watchful eye of their parents and the police. Penguin Random House Children’s is delighted to be publishing Good for Nothing, from UKYA debut author Mariam Ansar, which is set to publish in Spring 2023. World Rights were acquired from Claire Wilson at RCW Literary Agency by Penguin Editor Sara Jafari. Eman is the awkward girl whose favourite evenings are spent at home watching soaps with her Nani. Amir is the angry boy who won't talk about the brother he lost but won't let his name be forgotten either. Kemi is fast and fierce and beautiful, and knows she deserves as good a shot as anyone else, if only she can get to the starting line.

Beautifully written, well developed characters, authentic setting and real heart. Good for Nothing explores friendships, the nature of family and community, racism, conscious and unconscious bias and more. What more could you want in a book? Jafari said: “As soon as we read this all of us at Puffin knew we had something seriously special on our hands. Good For Nothing is emotional and heartbreaking – but also funny and relatable – and completely unlike anything I have read before. We are so proud to be the publisher launching Mariam’s writing career as a new literary talent to watch.” It is a realistic dip into the lives of diverse communities in Yorkshire and is written with compassion and awareness of the many hurdles Northern teens from marhinalised groups have to overcome. As well as being a damn good story, Good for Nothing carries a valuable message that resonated with me. The exercise I was involved in - a weekly seminar named Practical Criticism - revolved around analysing a text without considering its contexts: who wrote it, when did they write it, what socioeconomic factors could they have been responding to?With teaching, it’s a dynamic job and you’re seeing young people come in and live their lives, and getting to know themselves. There is something very earnest and sweet about it, even in the difficult moments. I think it’s inevitable that I’m going to take from some of their experiences.

If you’ve never translated seriously, you don’t really understand what language is’: Pulitzer prize winner Jhumpa Lahiri I think some of the challenges that came for me were people misunderstanding what I was trying to do. As the writer, you’re going to have this intense attachment to what you’re trying to do. Someone in publishing is thinking about how they’re going to make your book marketable. It’s important for young writers to know you can actually say no to suggestions. Don’t be afraid to put your foot down. Make sure you have a good relationship with your agent or somebody who can fight those fights for you. Mariam Ansar, 27, is a Bradford-born writer and secondary school English teacher. Her debut novel, Good For Nothing, was published by Penguin Random House in March 2023. The young adult story follows three teenagers, Amir, Eman and Kemi, living in a divided northern town.Today the silent majority of Muslims pray and buy treats for their family after dinner. They struggle with their hijab, and search TikTok for style tips. They play football and argue about their teams with stringent fervour. After all, the tradition of Muslim characters is nothing if not interesting: Shakespeare’s Othello is -in some interpretations - ambiguously racialised as deriving from Muslim Spain. Shelley’s Frankenstein features orientalised depictions of the Ottoman Empire in the passive, submissive Safie. I want the texts that are about Muslims to be just as rich and sharp, just as perceptive and loving, as the texts of the classical era; or the Victorian; or the medieval. I want them to be emotionally difficult and tangibly rewarding. Beyond interracial love stories, beyond headlines seeking to sensationalise the worst of us. Good For Nothing is a coming-of-age story which follows three teens grappling with grief and police prejudice in the north of England. It is a “rich and warmly written” novel exploring the power of friendship and human connection.

I see it as a love letter to the northern community, focusing on the lives of people that are often left out of dominant narratives. In the UK, we have such a southern-based focus on development and progress. There are young voices who are quite angry about the fact that they’re not really included. Writing this book felt like a reclaiming of not just forgotten areas but also forgotten emotions, and using those emotions to shed a light on important issues. What kind of challenges did you face within the publishing industry and do you have any advice for Muslim writers on how to overcome them? I went to mingling events with other British-born Muslims - naively expecting some camaraderie - and found that saying you’re from Bradford got its own set of laughs. Some non-funny jokes. Everyone in your ears: kasmey (I swear), yara (man!), bro. I am unsure if the silent majority recognises what stories they live every day. Certainly the young child that I was on my grandma’s street, arm in arm with a neighbour with the same name, face, and stance as my own, wouldn’t.Records the default button state of the corresponding category & the status of CCPA. It works only in coordination with the primary cookie. Ansar added: “This book is a love letter to every forgotten northern town, every young person of colour that has struggled to feel understood not simply in the depths of their misery – but also in the depths of their private joy. This one is for those whose smiles are sometimes read as troublesome, whose laughter is falsely labelled disruptive, whose silences are often misinterpreted. I hope it soothes. I hope it provokes anger. I hope it causes laughter upon laughter – and a secret tiny sob.”