Today’s lesson: The Boy at the Back of the Class now learns from To Kill a Mockingbird

Adapting Onjali Q Raúf’s novel for the stage proved a challenge but her refugee story, which has a new nod to Harper Lee, is both urgent and unforgettable

When I was young, my Bangladeshi dad embodied immigrant parent cliches. We grew up in a corner shop and he ran a restaurant and takeaway. He regularly, unequivocally demanded that his children learn a skill that we could take anywhere in the world as there might come a day when we’d find out “this country isn’t really ours”. Not even having a white English mother gave us full claim to England, he warned.

I dismissed this as the understandable but overwrought concerns of an immigrant. This was my country and nothing could change that, not the racist abuse I heard in the shop or the racist graffiti on the front of the takeaway. Continue reading...


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