Pigeon English Book

Newly arrived from Ghana with his mother and older sister eleven-year-old Harrison Opoku lives on the ninth floor of a block of flats on an inner-city housing estate. The second best runner in the whole of Year 7 Harri races through his new life in his personalised trainers - the Adidas stripes drawn on with marker pen - blissfully unaware of the very real threat all around him. With equal fascination for the local gang - the Dell Farm Crew - and the pigeon who visits his balcony Harri absorbs the many strange elements of his new life in England: watching listening and learning the tricks of urban survival. But when a boy is knifed to death on the high street and a police appeal for witnesses draws only silence Harri decides to start a murder investigation of his own. In doing so he unwittingly endangers the fragile web his mother has spun around her family to try and keep them safe. A story of innocence and experience hope and harsh reality Pigeon English is a spellbinding portrayal of a boy balancing on the edge of manhood and of the forces around him that try to shape the way he falls.

Pigeon English : Paperback : Bloomsbury Publishing Plc : 9781408810637 : 1408810638 : 07 Mar 2011 : Deeply funny, moving, idiosyncratic and unforgettable, Pigeon English introduces a major new literary talent