The Go-Between by Osman Yousefzada - Interview and Book Review

The Go-Between: A Portrait of Growing Up Between Different Worlds by Osman Yousefzada

You’re probably familiar with the work of multidisciplinary artist Osman Yousefzada without even realising it. The bright pink pattern that wraps around Birmingham’s Selfridges is Yousefzada’s hugest installation (and one of the world’s largest pieces of public art), with an endlessly tessellating design that reflects the multicultural ebb and flow of the city. His career has also included exhibiting at the Ikon Gallery and designing clothes for Beyonce, but his recently released memoir tells a different story. It takes us back to the ‘80s and ‘90s in Balsall Heath, documenting his childhood in a devout Pashtun community. This urgent book captures a forgotten period of history, rightfully placing women of colour at its heart.

Yousefzada sets the scene for his memoir as a street where ‘all the immigrants […] were housed; the prostitutes, the pimps, the broke artists and the ultra-orthodox, all searching for a better life here or in the hereafter’. Later, he playfully describes this location as ‘our very own cultural Battenberg of many colours’, reflecting the wonder and fascination of a narrative told by a young person. When I interviewed Yousefzada, he described the book as having ‘a sense of magic in it […] seen through the eyes of a child’. This is established from the opening sequence, as he muses longingly on the private Moseley Park, an ‘enchanted village’ that he is unable to enter.

One of the first things we discussed in the interview was the beautifully designed book-cover, which depicts a toddler-sized Osman in a chequered sweatshirt, surrounded by patterned borders, stretching outwards like broadening horizons. Yousefzada explained that he used several sources for the cover, including his mother’s signature, hand-drawn poppies, and fabric details from his artworks. This textile collage introduced a central theme in the book: the masterful handiwork of his mother, acting as a seamstress for women in the neighbourhood.

The book describes Palwashay’s work in rich detail, from intricate embroidery to colourful suits, and a young Yousefzada even joins in by fashioning a miniature burqa for his sister’s Barbie. His mother’s business attracts a ‘mecca for all kinds of women’, who are described as ‘empowered’ and ‘sophisticated’. Throughout the memoir, Yousefzada returns to the struggles and triumphs of countless women, whether immigrants, teachers or sex-workers.

Perhaps the most significant piece that Palwashay crafts is the ‘light-violet damask curtain’ that divides the women’s rooms from the men’s rooms in the home, used for when people are visiting. As a child, Yousefzada is able to enter both worlds, hence he acts as a ‘go-between’. Developing an exquisite juxtaposition between the two realms, Yousefzada celebrates the women’s rooms as a ‘full-blown epic, of tragedy, pathos, colour’, in stark contrast to the ‘drab, smoky posturing of the men’.

Of course, men still feature heavily in this book, as the author describes the patriarchal community. This is often a history of abuse, with his father verbally and physically harming his mother. The violence also comes from the outside, however, as the public-facing men are the targets of racial attacks. Yousefzada recalls how his Uncle Parwiz was beaten until almost unconscious by a gang of Neo-Nazis, after which point he never left his room again.

In the interview, Yousefzada argued that he also wanted to highlight the sheer energy of the immigrant men, acting as the ones doing ‘really heavy work […] that this manufacturing country was built upon’. The reader is offered snippets of this theme, through overheard conversations at the mosque about workplace prejudice, but it never fully materialises. Margaret Thatcher remains in the background as a mysterious, cruel figure, perhaps due to the child-like narration.

What Yousefzada does capture effectively, however, is the transformation of his neighbourhood during Thatcher’s tyrannical rule. The men swap ‘old-Hollywood’ fashions and hairstyles for ‘handmade skullcaps’ and more fundamentalist ideologies. They start to believe that ‘this world was so obviously ephemeral, and not worth investing in; it was the afterlife which was the true life’. This documented a route to religious extremism in a subtle and intelligent manner, akin to Mohsin Hamid’s metafictional novel The Reluctant Fundamentalist.

In the midst of such heavy topics, Yousefzada’s storytelling is imaginative, witty and youthful. His own experience of Islamic instruction makes for unexpected humour, with tales of his ‘jelly mania’ and sketchy home library of never-returned books. He candidly recalls that watching the television is restricted, because ‘the devil and his disciples gyrated and swirled around as they watched Top of the Pops’. There are also tales of sadness, such as when he accidentally brings in minced meat to make minced pies at school, and thus feels that he has failed ‘the White Cooking Test, the passport into white privilege’. The saddest story of all, is that of his sisters who are pulled out of school at age ten to support the family and remain in purdah (wearing concealing clothing). In possibly the most moving passage, Yousefzada describes his sister’s ‘chalk marks of hopscotch, the traces of her former play-life on our streets, eventually washed away by the Balsall Heath drizzle.’

As the memoir draws to a close, Yousefzada dedicates some time to his move to London at age 18, to a ‘vaster and faster metropolis’ to study at SOAS. This final section feels a little bit rushed, and would perhaps be better suited to another memoir about his rise to fame as a fashion designer.  I found myself wanting to know more about the future of Birmingham, rather than the capital city that seems to dominate all pop-culture conversations. Having said that, hearing a little about Yousefzada’s student life did help to emphasise the physical and psychological distance growing between the future artist and his community roots.

The author explained to me that he set out to create a ‘piece of history’ – and this was certainly achieved, even while the story felt a bit unfocussed at times. The Go-Between has established a lasting legacy, with many young Muslim girls reaching out to Yousefzada to say that ‘they felt I gave them language, and verbalised their need for being creative’. This was also evident at the book launch, with many South-Asian members of the audience expressing their gratitude and sharing similar memories of their childhood in Birmingham.

This isn’t a comfortable read, nor is it a straightforward one – but perhaps that’s the point. It tells a history that we all should know about, from a proud Birmingham-born artist whose parents worked hard to make this country their home.