A suicide bombing is being planned in a residential street in Manchester. Behind it lie Saleem Khan’s vivid memories – some full of regret and yearning, others humorous and yet others overshadowed by the surreal brutality of the war in Afghanistan.

“Mehmood is unswerving in his depiction of the racism that existed in Yorkshire mills in the 1970s as well as today’s virulent Islamophobia. After 9/11, a neighbour slams the door on Song of Gulzarina’s Saleem with the words, ‘When are you lot going to bomb us then, eh?’”– Claire Chambers, Huffington Post