
The Secret Diary of a British Muslim Aged 13 3/4 (Hardback)
Tez Ilyas (author)Published: 08/04/2021

From stand-up comedian and star of Man Like Mobeen comes a uproarious memoir of growing up Muslim at the end of the 90s, peppered with more serious and touching vignettes amidst the top drawer one-liners.
The hilarious and pubescent debut book from your favourite British Muslim comedian (that's Tez Ilyas, by the way) is coming to a shop near you. You may know and love Tez from his stand-up comedy, his role as Eight in Man Like Mobeen, his Radio 4 series TEZ Talks, or panel shows such as Mock the Week and The Last Leg.
Where you won't know him from is 1997 when he was 13 3/4. (But now you will - because that's what the book is about.)In this suitably dramatic rollercoaster of a teenage memoir, Tez takes us back to where it all began: a working class, insular British Asian Muslim community in his hometown of post-Thatcher Blackburn. Meet Ammi (Mum), Baji Rosey (the older sister), Shibz (the fashionable cousin), Was (the cool cousin), Shiry (the cleverest cousin) and a community with the most creative nicknames this side of Top Gun.
Running away from shotgun-wielding farmers, successfully dodging arranged marriages, getting mugged, having front row seats to race riots and achieving formative sexual experiences doing stomach crunches in a gym, you could say life was fairly run of the mill. But with a GCSE pass rate of 30% at his school, his own fair share of family tragedy around the corner and 9/11 on the horizon, Tez's experiences of growing up as a British Muslim wasn't the fun, Jihad-pursuing affair the media wants you to believe. Well ... not always.
At times shalwar-wettingly hilarious and at others searingly sad, The Secret Diary of a British Muslim Aged 13 3/4 shows 90s Britain at its best, and its worst.
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
ISBN: 9780751582185
Number of pages: 416
Weight: 660 g
Dimensions: 238 x 158 x 40 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
The razor-sharp narrative delves into [Tez's] life as a teenager growing up in Blackburn in the 1990s, who is caught between the ugly shadow of racism and the traditional values of a Muslim family connected to their roots * Eastern Eye *
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