Books: PIGEON ENGLISH by Stephen Kelman

Title: Pigeon English
Author: Stephen Kelman
Published: 2011
Genre: Fiction

This was a humorous and easy read. Stephen Kelman's debut novel was shortlisted for the Man Booker for 2011 - a feat that even he was surprised by . It tells the story of eleven year old Ghanaian immigrant Harry Opoku who lives in inner-city London, in an area riddled by gang war and violence. Following the fatal stabbing of a fellow schoolmate by gang members in his neighbourhood, Harry, together with his best friend go about trying to solve the murder. Although told from Harry's eleven year old perspective, the sense of danger is nuanced but effectively done.

Kelman's use of pidgin english in the book adds to the humour and his descriptions of some of the Ghanaian scenes described by Harry are both visual and accurate. Harry's pet pigeon is the only confidant and witness to all of Harry's experiences as he tries to stay safe from the neighbourhood gangs and be the 'man of the house' for his mother and two sisters.

The author treats Harry's lack of understanding of some of the immediate dangers around him convincingly; Harry still retains some level of innocence - even with all the violence he's surrounded by. As he casually relates stories of the expensive gifts that he gets from his Uncle; or the fact that his Aunt is always bruised and battered; or the that his Aunt is always dropping things because she has shaved off her fingerprints - he remains unaware of the thug life that his Uncle leads, the obvious physical abuse his Aunt his Aunt is living with, and the fact that his Aunt and Uncle are illegal immigrants. The reader merely gets the perspective of a pre-pubescent boy who more interested in his toys and games than anything else.
His prowess as a runner - the best runner in the whole of Year 7-   arms him with the survival skills needed to stay alive, when he realises early on that his only survival mechanism is to run from the danger. The telling of his experiences is fraught with eleven-year-old speak - which Kelman does just was well as he does the pidgin english.

The ending is sudden and tragic. It is so sudden that after I'd read the last paragraph, I flipped back to earlier pages to note whether I had missed anything along the way. Kelman does not dwell on it, and although throughout the book I had the sense that something tragic was going to happen, I felt that it came too abruptly.

I do caution that the liberal use of pidgin english may be challenge to the flow of the book for readers not familiar with some of the words.