Who Will Remain: Kasim Ali explores one young British-Pakistani man's battle between family expectations and life on the streets

The young Pakistani male living in deprived areas in cities like Birmingham or Bradford is perhaps the most demonised figure in 21st-century Britain, and we have politicians and legacy media to thank for that.

Seldom, if ever, do we get the chance to be, as the urban term goes, on a level with them. And you can forget about finding novels written by young British Pakistani men where they are the protagonists.

That’s why the author of Good Intentions, Kasim Ali, has done something very special with his new book, Who Will Remain.

Who Will Remain (4th Estate), out this month, thrusts us into the palpably stifling existence of Amir from Alum Rock, an inner-city suburb in Birmingham, who is in the second year of his civil engineering degree (something he chose because other people told him to).

Compared to his first year, university has suddenly become a lot harder. His mother is largely absent and disinterested in his life, and his father is harsh and overbearing.

Amir feels like his parents hate him, and the only person who understood him, his cousin Saqib, has just been stabbed to death by a rival drug gang.

The search for belonging 

The novel begins at his cousin’s funeral, and immediately we are given a glimpse of Amir’s life. Unable to find something suitable to wear to the janazah, he puts together a makeshift outfit from an old black work uniform, and Amir is reminded that he is poor; in fact, he is convinced he reeks of poverty.

His parents are not worried about how Amir might be feeling after losing someone who was like a brother to him; they are angry that he disappears home after the janazah prayer instead of joining the men at the graves – as usual, the primary concern is what other people will think.

In this instance, his older brother Bilal does it right, with his tailored black shalwar kameez and ability to converse with relatives in Urdu. But you would be wrong to think that Bilal is the golden child — the label of black sheep rotates between the two brothers.

Ali says the unique dynamics that play out in South Asian families in Britain are something he was particularly interested in exploring in his second novel, and he wanted it to be set in his hometown of Alum Rock.

“I'm interested in what we owe our parents and our obligations to them, but also their failed obligations to us and the space that exists between parents and children,” he tells The New Arab.

“Sometimes Amir is the good son because he stayed at home for university and is more traditional; he also doesn't have the progressive politics his older brother Bilal has. But then Bilal is the one who has the good job, knows Urdu, talks to people politely, and is getting married to somebody suitable, while Amir goes out all night with his friends.”

The price for a better life

Money — and the lack of it — plays a central theme in Amir’s life. His best friend, Mohsin, is so wealthy that he is careless with his money, yet at the same time, he is generous when it comes to Amir. But Amir refuses his friend’s money out of a place of pride.

Amir only has to look down his street to see the mansions and expensive cars being driven by young Pakistani men who are dealing drugs. He has grown up alongside these boys and has made it this far without getting involved.

But the temptation of easy money, when he is constantly unable to share the dinner bill with friends and with parents who give him none, becomes too much.

As a reader, you can’t help but be disappointed in Amir’s choices, yet at the same time, you feel deeply for him.

Ali’s ability to humanise young men like Amir is something that is rarely found in the media or literature. The closest may be Guz Khan’s hit comedy Man Like Mobeen, also set in Birmingham, where no matter how hard Mobeen tries to stay away from drug gangs and be ‘good’, he inadvertently finds himself back in it. Likewise, Amir succumbs to the temptation, thinking of all the good things he can do with that money.

Ali says the inspiration comes from family, friends and ex-schoolmates, and while Ali never joined a gang, he knows what it feels like to be a young man with no money.

“A lot of people paint selling drugs as a terrible thing, and like most things, it's incredibly complicated and nuanced. For some people, it's quite literally their lifeline. They might not be able to make that sort of money any other way, and it goes towards raising a family, paying the rent and bills, or providing a life for their parents and siblings. I wanted to explore that as the moral litmus of that situation,” Ali explains.

To say that Amir is completely innocent would be naïve. There are certain points in the novel where he is not a particularly nice person, and you find yourself disappointed in his actions. This, Ali says, was intentional. While humanising young men like Amir is important, they are not without fault. The choices they make, as Who Will Remain demonstrates, have grave consequences.

Ali says he did not want to paint young drug dealers as saints nor as foes, but to explore the grey area instead.

“Without giving spoilers, there's one moment in the book where something happens which is very morally complex. Amir believes that something happened to a girl in a particular way, but she says it happened in another way. I wanted to include that to show that he is capable of doing something like that,” says Ali.

Family expectations

As Amir is introduced to other young South Asian men involved in drug dealing, we are privy to the types of conversations that take place and the influences that have a bearing on how they form their ideas. There is a mention of one notorious public figure in the red pill movement. We begin to understand how these young men become so hard.

The pressure from their families to earn but also have high-paying jobs and the desire to repay their parents who came to England with nothing, turns these young men into hardened criminals who are forced to forget any personal aspirations outside of making money. It also makes them unmarriageable and results in the adoption of ideas like those propagated by the red pill movement.

As readers, we learn that being a young Pakistani male today is a complex experience.

“It's deeply depressing,” says Ali. “You watch all these young men who have all these ambitions and aspirations and are smart enough to achieve them, crumble under this pressure, unable to talk to anybody about it or find the language for it, and then they calcify into statues.”

At this point, Ali says, it is impossible to get through to them, something that both Amir’s brother Bilal and his uncle find out.

Who Will Remain is a searing and heartfelt tragedy of our times, creating a voice for a segment of urban society that, rather than create opportunities and alternative routes to success, is condemned to a criminal way of life and vilified instead.

Who Will Remain is published by 4th Estate Books and comes out on 17 July 2025

Yousra Samir Imran is a British Egyptian writer and author based in Yorkshire. She is the author of Hijab and Red Lipstick, published by Hashtag Press

Follow her on X: @UNDERYOURABAYA