Guy Gunaratne is back. And he doesn’t deviate much from the theme of his Booker-longlisted 2018 debut novel, In Our Mad and Furious City, which portrayed diaspora communities in London against the backdrop of a terrorist attack. His latest, Mister, Mister, is a coming-of-age picaresque novel set in London. It introduces us to Yahya Bas, a British-Iraqi citizen, who is held as a terror suspect in an immigration detention centre.
At the novel’s outset, we find Bas in a state of mental turmoil, having resorted to self-mutilation by severing his tongue. And thereby, the tongueless youth starts telling his tale; presumably to an interrogation officer whom he addresses as the titular ‘Mister’. Bas can’t speak but will write for the officer his life story.
Gunaratne’s Mastercraft puts forward an intricate portrayal of the protagonist––a poet-turned-jehadist’s internal struggles and explores the complexities of his identity, which takes shape while growing up in a household filled with women of less fortune. The sense of longing for his father, his mother’s mental distress, his uncle’s eccentricities and the many shades of his surrogate moms form the backbone of the book. The novel is a rollercoaster of raw emotions that are conveyed through confessional missives by Bas, and elicit a deep sense of empathy.
The narrative unfolds through a succession of candid letters, where Bas unburdens the chronicles of his existence. These revelations commence with his tumultuous upbringing during the 1990s and culminate with his transformative journey to Syria in 2013. Despite being cast as a terror suspect, you don’t hate Bas, probably because the protagonist of Mister, Mister forges an instant and undeniable connection with the readers on multiple levels. It’s not too hard to understand why. Bas is as forthright as one can get when he says, “Boundless and as bad-mannered as I was, Mister, I’d been given an odd glimmer of my own reflection. A vision of myself in other people’s heads.” He isn’t the only one. While growing up, he is addressed in many ways.
As ‘Marwan’s son’ or ‘Estella’s yahya’; sometimes ‘idiot boy’ or ‘goat boy’. To find his identity, he turns to books and starts penning his thoughts lyrically and, before you know it, the young lad from East Ham is a sought-after poet-preacher with a significant social media following.
A book like Mister, Mister may come across as an easy read when it comes to the narrative, but the impact it has on the mind is another point altogether. As the readers navigate the labyrinthine corridors of Bas’s mind, they discover facets of vulnerability, curiosity and humanity that transcend the stigma surrounding his circumstances. Gunaratne masterfully crafts a character who, despite the weight of suspicion, manages to bridge the gap between his experiences and the world we live in, fostering an unexpected yet profound resonance, especially when Bas talks about his childhood or how he found solace in poetry. It leaves a lasting impression.
The joy, as usual, with Gunaratne’s work is that he doesn’t shy away from hitting out hard on the way the modern society is shaping up––the world that is increasingly becoming intolerant towards the less privileged. While talking about leaving Britain, discarding his identity and walking out into an unknown abyss––an exile from where there are rarely any comebacks––Bas writes, “Sometimes the only thing to do is abandon a dead thing.”
Undoubtedly, the story is a literary voyage; a monologue radio transmission in 300-odd pages, which puts forth a homeless boy’s tumultuous journey with resounding chaos and riveting drama. Bas, though deeply flawed, never comes across as someone who should be punished. From longing to abandonment, and indifference to attachment, his emotional turmoil beckons readers to join him on a quest of self-exploration that boldly questions the confines of societal norms.
“Whether I turn out to be the hero of my own life or the villain of yours, these pages must show,” writes Bas in the closing line of his letter to Mister. We do know that sometimes the same person can be seen as both good and bad, depending on how someone else looks at them. Bas bares himself open; it’s for the reader, and the Mister, to decide now. In our complex world, where challenges can mask our true selves, the book is a powerful nudge to remember that embracing who we truly are remains an ongoing pursuit.