What's Your Problem? - Tapa blanda

Another potent read for school students is Bali Rai's short, accessible and arresting novella, What s Your Problem?, which, in very direct and bare-worded language, pulls its readers into the lives of an Asian family who move from a more secure Nottingham inner-city neighbourhood to a Midland village location, where the father has bought a newsagent shop. Their experiences are seen through the eyes and mind of the teenage son, Jaspal, who encounters the extremes of youthful life. Loyalty, particularly from the girls he befriends at his new rural school, and the violent gang racism from some of the boys, particularly those infected by the ideas of a fascist organisation called the Brotherhood of the White Fist , which spread out into the parochial hostility of the village. The author wastes no words. From the first chapter the reader is hurled headlong into the family s life and predicament, and the pressure continues throughout the novella s eighty pages until the tragic consequences of its ending, which reflect the reality of many real now-times news stories. This is a reading experience that will engage the consciousnesses of thousands of school readers, and in particular English teachers need to buy class sets so that the book and its themes are read and discussed in classrooms all over Britain. For What s Your Problem? opens up vital social questions which need to be at the creative head and heart of all our schools. --Chris Searle, Institute of Race Relations

Bali Rai's ability to cleverly interweave modern social issues into wonderfully satisfying stories comes in a very short, but striking, book of only 81 pages... Jaspal seeming to be the only Asian kid in a Midlands village and a focus for racial and friendship problems. --School Librarian

Bali Rai's ability to cleverly interweave modern social issues into wonderfully satisfying stories comes in a very short, but striking, book of only 81 pages... Jaspal seeming to be the only Asian kid in a Midlands village and a focus for racial and friendship problems. --School Librarian

Jaspal's family moves from the inner city to a Midlands village when his dad opens a shop. He's the only Asian teenager in the village and this new life just isn't for him. Though he quickly becomes friends with some school students, the insults from others begin. Jaspal's dad tells him that everything will be OK, but the racism gets worse. Soon it gets much worse and Jaspal's life will never be the same again. We will soon have a companion volume to this, looking at racism by Asian people. For further information contact Five Leaves Bookshop.