You've slipped into something mythical, like a religious pilgrimage.
On a street that transforms from ordinary to mythical after dark, a young writer from Blackburn has found the raw material for a debut novel that refuses to simplify the lives it portrays. Sufiyaan Salam's 'Wimmy Road Boyz' follows three British-Pakistani men through a single night on Manchester's Wilmslow Road, holding together laughter and unspoken weight in the same breath. The book arrives already decorated with prizes and praise, but its deeper ambition is older and quieter: to insist that these lives, this language, and this street deserve the same literary seriousness as any other.
- A night out after lockdown — meant to stay light — carried a ticking weight beneath the laughter that nobody dared name, and that tension became the engine of the novel.
- Three young men move through bars and restaurants on the Curry Mile while race, class, economic anxiety, and desire press in from every direction, threatening to detonate the fun.
- Salam writes in a voice that layers Aristotle with Urdu slang and Tupac references, deliberately refusing the flattened stereotypes that too often define young Muslim men in British fiction.
- The book arrives May 28 carrying a New Writers' Prize from Stormzy's #Merky Books, a BAFTA nomination, and the weight of an author who has been quietly building toward this moment since his teenage years in Blackburn.
- Rather than stepping away from the Curry Mile once the novel is done, Salam is already imagining the film — going deeper into the street's texture, not further from it.
On a quiet March morning, Sufiyaan Salam walks Manchester's Curry Mile and describes what it had looked like the night before during Eid: gridlocked cars, vuvuzelas, people spilling onto the pavement — controlled chaos that felt almost sacred. That gap between what the street is in daylight and what it becomes after dark sits at the centre of his debut novel, 'Wimmy Road Boyz', which follows three British-Pakistani men in their early twenties through one long night on Wilmslow Road.
The book's origins were personal. After lockdown, Salam went out with two friends for a night that was supposed to be purely fun. Each of them was quietly carrying something heavier, but nobody surfaced it — the mood was too fragile. The night stayed light. In the novel, that unspoken weight eventually detonates. As the three characters move through bars and restaurants, they navigate race, class, sex, and economic anxiety while processing it all through humour and the immediate pull of the night. It feels, Salam says, very like life.
What sets the book apart is its refusal to simplify. Salam writes in a voice that is simultaneously streetwise and literary — slang-heavy dialogue alongside references to Aristotle, Pakistani Urdu and Arabic woven into English vernacular. He was deliberate about it: these characters can quote Tupac and discuss philosophy in the same breath, and the writing does not condescend to them or to the reader. He wanted the British-Pakistani masculine experience to carry the same literary weight as Irvine Welsh or James Joyce.
That ambition was shaped by an unusual upbringing. Salam grew up in Blackburn around gang culture and Tupac, but his parents took him to the library and his grandfather assigned him essays on classic literature. As a teenager he wrote novels and taught himself animation through YouTube. He later studied English, completed a screenwriting master's, worked on Hollyoaks and a pre-school animation, and made short films — one of which won best British short at the BIFAs and earned a BAFTA nomination. He moves between mediums instinctively.
'Wimmy Road Boyz' publishes on May 28, already carrying a New Writers' Prize from Stormzy's #Merky Books imprint and praise from Stormzy himself. Standing on the Curry Mile, Salam spots a detail he wishes he'd caught in the novel — someone had built a palace out of Asian sweets the day before. "Maybe I'll get to make a film of it," he says, "and I'll put it in." The remark is casual, but the direction is clear: not away from this street, but further into it.
Sufiyaan Salam stands on Manchester's Curry Mile on a quiet March morning, surveying a street that looks ordinary in daylight—shuttered restaurants, a pharmacy, a few takeaways. But he knows what it becomes at night. The previous evening, during Eid celebrations, the same stretch of road had been transformed into something almost mythical: cars gridlocked, people spilling onto pavement, two kids perched on a vehicle with vuvuzelas, the whole scene vibrating with a kind of controlled chaos that felt, to him, like a religious pilgrimage.
That feeling—the gap between what the Curry Mile is and what it becomes—is the beating heart of his debut novel, Wimmy Road Boyz, which follows three British-Pakistani men in their early twenties through a single epic night on Wilmslow Road. The book has already accumulated the kind of early validation that makes publishers sit up: it won the New Writers' Prize from Stormzy's #Merky Books imprint in 2024, earned a Bafta nomination for a related short film, and generated enough buzz to land on several year-end most-anticipated lists. Stormzy himself called it a "blistering debut."
The novel's genesis was personal. Salam had gone out with two male friends after lockdown ended, a night meant to be purely fun. But each of them was carrying something heavier—what Salam describes as "tough personal life stuff"—that nobody wanted to surface because it would deflate the mood. So they didn't discuss it. The night stayed light on the surface, fun and drama-free. Yet Salam understood the precariousness of that arrangement: the ticking time bomb beneath the laughter. In the novel, that bomb goes off. As his three characters move up and down the road, in and out of bars and restaurants, they navigate a minefield of modern pressures—race, class, sex, age, economic anxiety—while processing it all through flippant humor and the immediate pull of the night's desires. It's a rollercoaster between genuine fun and genuine stress, which Salam argues "feels very like life."
What distinguishes the book is its refusal to compromise on style or ambition. Salam writes in a voice that is simultaneously colloquial and kaleidoscopic, layering slang-heavy dialogue with references to Aristotle, weaving in Pakistani Urdu and Arabic words alongside English streetwise vernacular. He was explicit about his intent: to avoid the stereotypes that often flatten young men, especially young Muslim men, in literature. "The writing hasn't been dumbed down," he says. "I've just written something that I believe is trying to be as good as it can be." He wanted his characters—and the British-Pakistani masculine experience they embody—to carry the same literary weight as the work of Irvine Welsh, James Joyce, or Dickens.
This ambition didn't emerge from nowhere. Salam grew up in Blackburn surrounded by gang culture and a soundtrack of Tupac Shakur, but his parents also took him to the library, and his grandfather made him write essays about classic literature. As a teenager, he wrote two novels and made DIY films, teaching himself animation through YouTube tutorials because he lacked the money and equipment to shoot conventionally. He later studied English, completed a screenwriting master's degree, interned as a storyliner on the Channel 4 soap Hollyoaks, and worked as a script editor on the pre-school animation JoJo & Gran Gran—all while continuing to make his own work. A short film he created won best British short at the British Independent Film Awards last November and was nominated for the same prize at the Baftas. He moves between mediums the way other people move between rooms.
That fluidity of form reflects something deeper in his thinking about storytelling. He wanted to capture the actual language of his own inner monologue and that of the boys he knew—the slang, the cultural references, the philosophical tangents—and give it the same care and respect as the best literature. Not as a gimmick, but as an act of recognition. These characters aren't idiots. They can discuss Aristotle and quote Tupac in the same breath. They exist in a world that is genuinely theirs, not a flattened version constructed for outsiders.
Wimmy Road Boyz publishes on May 28. Standing on the Curry Mile, Salam points out the sweet centres that line one side of the street, mentioning that he'd seen someone build a palace out of Asian sweets the day before—a detail so vivid he wishes he'd captured it in the novel. "Maybe I'll get to make a film of it," he says, "and I'll put it in." It's a casual remark, but it suggests where his ambitions are heading: not away from the Curry Mile, but deeper into it, finding new ways to render its texture and meaning.
Notable Quotes
I want something that is fun and entertaining. The writing hasn't been dumbed down. I've just written something that I believe is trying to be as good as it can be.— Sufiyaan Salam
That experience should be given the same weight as the experience Irvine Welsh writes about in Trainspotting, or James Joyce's work, or Dickens.— Sufiyaan Salam
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
What made you want to write about a single night rather than a longer arc?
A night contains everything. You can compress a year's worth of emotional weather into a few hours if you're paying attention. And the Curry Mile at night—it's already heightened, already mythical. I didn't need to invent drama. I just needed to let the pressure that was already there surface.
You mention not wanting to write a trauma novel. But your characters are clearly dealing with real pain.
Right, but they're not wallowing in it. They're living. They're cracking jokes, they're chasing the next moment, they're trying to have fun. That's how actual people survive difficult things. Not by sitting with it, but by moving through it.
Why was it important to you that the language not be simplified?
Because I was tired of seeing characters like mine treated as if they needed translation. As if slang and Urdu and references to Aristotle couldn't exist in the same sentence. That's not a stylistic choice—that's how these guys actually think and talk.
You've worked in television, animation, film. Why the novel now?
Each medium lets you do something different. A novel lets you get inside someone's head in a way film can't. You can layer the language, the rhythm, the internal monologue. I wanted to try that.
Do you think the Curry Mile itself is a character in the book?
Absolutely. It's not just a setting. It's a place where something happens to people—where they feel permission to be a certain way. That transformation is part of what the book is about.