Dutiful Boy News Today

We seek inspiration, consolation – and the unvarnished truth. And we know that all the best stories are true, says Caroline Knox, director of the Boswell book festival

For many LGBTQ South Asian people, in their life comes a watershed moment when they discover themselves on the pages or the screen.

Opinion editor Ammar Farra argues that Pride Month is a time to remember the layered history of sexuality and fight for equal rights for LGBTQ+ people. At the same time,

Mohsin Zaidi appeared on the Jeremy Vine Radio 2 show on 3 March to discuss his book about growing up gay in a working-class, conservative Muslim family Author and criminal barrister Mohsin Zaidi has been praised online after appearing on Jeremy Vine’s Radio 2 show to discuss his “inspiring, heartbreaking and eye-opening” coming out memoir A Dutiful Boy. Mohsin Zaidi grew up in a close-knit, working class, conservative Muslim family, and was the first pupil from his comprehensive school...

One could be forgiven for thinking that barrister Mohsin Zaidi’s A Dutiful Boy: A Memoir of a Gay Muslim’s Journey to Acceptance would be an all-too-familiar identity narrative — of those whose parents are South Asian immigrants in the United Kingdom, and typically depicting their family and community denying them the agency to realise their true selves. However, it soon becomes abundantly clear that it is anything but that. Zaidi’s voice is pertinent as he writes about issues of identi...