Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2020
In this semi-autobiographical novel, debut author Gabriel Krauze works with his own experiences coming of age as the son of Polish immigrants in the brutalist public housing estate of South Kilburn, London, and making money as a drug dealer and criminal - while also completing a degree in English literature. Our protagonist - also named Gabriel, but called Snoopz by his peers - is terrified of the idea of having to work a nine-to-five job and uses every chance to point out how easy it was for him to get the degree despite his poor work ethic because, hey, he is so smart - and it's ironic that at the same time, the book makes his life as a criminal living on the edge in gritty London seem not only bleak, but most of all dull. There are robberies and gangs and drugs and sex, there is love and friendship and betrayal and alliances - and most of all, it's dull. How the hell is that possible?

It is of course commendable that Krauze paints an authentic picture of South Kilburn that illuminates the difficult situation many people who live there are in - many of the residents are immigrants without many resources who live in a dangerous environment, as the concrete blocks have been plagued by crime, drugs, shootings, stabbings and gang wars (Krauze refers to some real incidents in the novel). By centering on these issues, Krauze points out many social problems he himself was a part of, and he employs the specific dialect spoken in the milieu. Unfortunately though, his text is highly descriptive and sometimes even feels enumerative, like a set of very common bleak scenes rhythmically interrupted by people smoking cigarettes (I swear, the repetition of the "I have to smoke a cigarette now" motif was driving me up the walls - not because I mind my fictional characters smoking, but because it is in there ca. 63384353 times).

And there are of course great novels about the relentless side of postmodern London, like GRM: Brainfuck and - the obvious comparison - In Our Mad and Furious City, Guy Gunaratne's epic masterpiece set in the decrepit housing blocks in the north of the city. Gunaratne was nominated for the Booker 2018 and went on grabbing the International Dylan Thomas Prize and the Jhalak Prize instead. His book is full of music and lyrical perfection, he conveys emotional intensity and offers a captivating plot - not one dull second here. Even though Krauze is marketed as an authentic voice (and with the made-up label of "estate noir" which, let's face it, is a very clumsy attempt at trying to frame a text), it's Gunaratne's story that finds the words to open up these realities to readers.

This is not a bad book at all, but it's also not a great book - it's just not enough to say "I've been there, I've seen it", an author also has to be able to turn the descriptions of reality into art. And while I have to admit that going up against Gunaratne is a tough call, it's also true that Krauze's book can't compete with this stellar entry from 2018. But would I read whatever Krauze comes up with next? Definitely.

'We are basically all products of each moment in our lives, sometimes becoming things we never knew we could be.'
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Thank you to 4th Estate (Harper Collins) and Netgalley for approving me to read this ARC, due out on 3rd September.
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I'm not surprised that Gabriel Krauze's book has been longlisted for the Booker Prize.
Although this is classed as fiction, it feels as though it is a memoir, giving insight into the reality of growing up in certain parts of London. There is a real authenticity to the writing.
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'Morality is just a rule of behaviour relative to the level of danger in which individuals live. If you're living in dangerous times, you can't afford to live according to moral structures the way someone who lives in safety and peace can.'
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Krauze mixes beauty and violence seemlessly in his writing. Even amongst the brutality, he is very contemplative and poetic.
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'broken lifts, stairs shiny with piss ... bits of empty clingfilm like little whispers going down the stairs.'
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He recognises the different versions of himself that he presents to the world, based on the specific environment; at Uni, with his friends, throughout his day to day life.
Krauze recognises that he is separate from his peers at University where it is 'abnormal' to talk about the stabbings, shootings and robberies that constitute his life.
However, it's as though he cannot imagine any other way to be, and it is clear he does not buy in to the conformist expectations of society.
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'Sometimes I'm not sure who I am anymore. There's all these masks we wear that confuse us. It's like looking in a mirror and if you've worn a mask for too long, you convince yourself that it's your real face you're looking at.'
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He makes a number of comments on race, class and privilege throughout the book, from people assuming he must be mixed race by virtue of his violent and criminal actions, to recognising that even despite his actions he still has a degree of privilege because of his white skin.
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'I don't feel any remorse ... and it's not because we're evil or any basic moral bullshit like that ... She defo doesn't spend a second thinking about individuals like me, about what it's like to be me. She doesn't care about me and I don't care about her ... and it's all because we're locked away in our own little worlds.'
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Throughout Krauze's writing I especially like his reflections and the emotions he portrays. He reflects on family, lost friends, and the realities of the life he lived with truth, not just to maintain a facade.
This feels like a very timely debut, and I would highly recommend it.

I read this book due to its longlisting for the 2020 Booker Prize – and what I am quickly realising is a varied, brave and innovative longlist, which in particular features a range of really diverse debuts.

This is one of that group of debuts – written by Gabriel Krauze. The Booker website sets out his biography:

Gabriel Krauze came of age among the high rises and back streets of South Kilburn. He was not an observer on the periphery of violence. He was – personally - heavily involved in gangs, drugs, guns, stabbing and robbery - all while completing an English degree at Queen Mary’s University.

And in the Author’s Note at the back the author tells us why this background is so relevant to the book – “Often the truth is disturbing and ugly everything in this book, in this story, was experienced in one way or another - otherwise I wouldn’t be able to tell it“ - because this book it seems is more fictionalized memoir than pure fiction, with a first party narrator, around 18-19 at the book’s opening around 2007 in South Kilburn; a narrator known to his friends as Snoopz but to his parents as Gabriel and to the probation service as Mr Krauze.

It’s a story which describes London – the City where I work – but a very different London to the one that I or almost anyone I know would recognise, as a number of quotes in the book acknowledge.

The story opens with a burt of adrenaline as Snoopz jumps out the whip, face covered in a bally to clamp a rich woman while Gotti does the eat, and tries to pop her Rolex (worth some serious p’s, likely even a number of bags), before they return to Big D who drives ahead in a posher car scoping the belly.

We then return to his moving to South Kilburn at age 17 after finally leaving his Polish family (father, artistic mother and aspiring violinist twin brother) and moves in with the father of two boys he met at a grime Battle and from there we get the story of his involvement in drug taking, drug dealing, theft and violence and the penal system, while staying on the fringes of the postcode related gang culture (his Polish background and only temporary status in South Kilburn allowing him to stay one step removed) studying English literature at University and forging deep friendships and rather shallower sexual relationships.


The book is scattered throughout with London road talk – a road mix of course of Jamacian Patios and US rap culture, with a strong London overlay, one which I found fairly easy to follow (with occasional use of Urban Dictionary)

But it is also shot through with some memorable imagery – for example on being lockdown in prison:

“Always time to kill. Nothingness is long. Turns the day long. Makes it drip, but as it drips down, it doesn’t separate from its source, like honey or golden syrup, a long sticky string, and you’re waiting for the thinnest part of the drip to finally break and separate so the drop can hit the floor. But it doesn’t.”

Ultimately it would be easy to dismiss this book as glamorising violence or romanticizing gang culture. I do find violence/sex in books more acceptable when they are authentic as here rather than gratuitously manufactured. And of course enjoying this book brings a level of moral complexity.

But I found this very powerful and extremely memorable read.

Ultimately literature is around experiencing different lives and worlds (and what this book shows is that one does not have to travel far to see a different world - for the main period of the book I was working less than 10 miles away and commonly travelling on similar tube routes) and about empathy – one question the book poses is whether such a thing is even possible across that 10 mile divide and in those tube carriages.

An autobiographical novel highlights the hidden war zones of London written almost entirely London-slang. From the beginning we are thrown into a world of robbery, drugs, violence and the struggle to survive in a North London.
30 year-old Krauze looks back on his life and tries to make sense of it.
The writing is a brilliant piece of energetic descriptive writing.

From jounwin.co.uk

"Gabriel Krauze grew up in London in a Polish family and was drawn to a life of crime and gangs from an early age. Now in his thirties he has left that world behind and is recapturing his life through writing. He has published short stories in Vice. Who They Was is his first novel."

Then from Vice as a preface to one of those short stories:

"Gabriel Krauze is a writer from South Kilburn, London, who has pioneered his own 'estate noir' genre – literary non-fiction, real events told in his own inimitable style."

Then from the Author’s Note at the end of the book:

"Who They Was is based on a specific period in my life. It’s about a world many people can only imagine from what they see in the news and on TV. It’s a world full of untold stories. This one has never been told because it is my story."

Told almost entirely in London slang and set in a very real London (you can follow the characters around on Google maps, if you want), this is a book that exposes a culture and lifestyle of which I know next to nothing. Or, in fact, nothing. I have lived my life in the English countryside, only occasionally visiting a city and just sometimes that city is London. Here, Krauze relates a period in his life lived in North London. As he says later in the author’s note, "everything in this book, in this story, was experienced in one way or another - otherwise I wouldn’t be able to tell it"

It’s hard to write about this book because there is a constant awareness that you are not discussing a fictional character: anything you say is making reference to a real person who experienced the events described in the book. It is a book that lives on the edge and often strays across a boundary into violence. There’s a sense of tension in the narrator’s life: he is very intelligent, working towards a university degree and highly regarded by his tutors, but it takes very little to provoke him and cause him to lose control. Through a lot of the story there is a sense of two different destinies pulling at Krauze, one calling him “up” to education and all that offers, and one calling him “down” to crime and drugs.

"It’s mad how I know this world of wickedness and doing mad tings that earn respect, and that same time I know a world of going to uni and trying to write a 3000-word essay on The Birth of Tragedy, and I also know the world that’s all about get up, go to work, go on holiday, buy this, buy that, tick this box, tick that box, box, tick, box tick, box tick. But the people in that uni world and in the box-ticking world, don’t know this one I’m in right now."

The further you get into the book, the more you begin to somehow relate to Krauze: you simultaneously understand what makes him react how he does and hope that he can fulfil his potential and somehow "save" himself. And that surprised me, because the life he describes is so completely different from the life I have lived.

The language in the book takes some getting used to. I learned a lot of new words as I read. The good news is that you can work out what most of the London slang words mean from their context. There are also lots of webpages you can turn to that will help you if you get stuck, although most of these tend to skip over the words that describe drugs, violence and sex and so are not a lot of help. But Krauze is also a poet at heart and there are beautiful sentences that suddenly leap out of page, especially when taken in the context of the gang culture that is being described.

So, you might read:

"Taz was one of them brers that when you walk through the ends with him he’d constantly be stopping to say wagwan to someone, olders hailing him up, next man on the block calling out yo Taz wa’um, and he’d raise a fist as he passed by and shout yes g mi deya."

And then suddenly

"Grey clouds like heavy sponges tug on the sky’s skin"

Or

"Black like a bee’s tongue with eyes like some far corner of space where even stars get lost."

Or

"… for the first time that night I can see stars stinging the petrol black sky"

All this makes for a very powerful reading experience that shows a whole new world that very few readers, I imagine, will have experienced for themselves. As the narrator says:

"It’s mad how you can live in a city and never see any of this. Or you just see faint smudges of it every now and again around the edges of your existence but even then you don’t fully believe in it, because even though we live in the same city, where I’m from and where you’re from could be two totally separate worlds."