Sydney Writers' Festival 2008 - Online Program
An Unimagined Journey with Imran Ahmad
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Part White Teeth, part Adrian Mole, Unimagined is Imran Ahmad’s captivating memoir of a Muslim boy born in Pakistan, who moves to London aged one and grows up torn between his Islamic identity and his desire to embrace the West. The endearing narrator recalls his childhood in a series of vivid snapshots: outrage as deserved victory is snatched away from him in the Karachi Bonnie Baby contest; bitterness as he is tricked out of his collection of Tarzan bubble-gum cards by junior con artists; the heady taste of success in the Metropolitan Police schools quiz; joy at passing the entrance exam to the local grammar school; uncertainty as he seeks to become a doctor (like all good Asian boys); and shock at experiencing racist abuse from pupils, neighbours and strangers. Imran’s story is both highly enjoyable and urgently pertinent; it takes the Western reader deep inside the Muslim psyche, as well as unravelling Islam from a complex tangle of cultural and social influences.

Imran Ahmad talks with Bruce Elder.

Author Talk  |  Life Writing, Current Affairs
Participants
Imran Ahmad, Bruce Elder (facilitator)

When
Sunday, May 25 2008
14:00 - 15:00

Where
Pier 2/3, Upstairs Writers’ Salon
Pier 2/3, Hickson Road
Walsh Bay
Venue and Transport Info...

Cost
$15/$10

Bookings
9250 1988
www.sydneytheatre.org.au

Schedule
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BRUCE ELDER (LOCAL)Elder, Bruce
Bruce Elder has been involved in writing over 60 books and he has worked as a print and radio journalist in both London and Sydney.

He is an award-winning journalist (Geraldine Pascall Prize for Critical Writing 1996) who is currently a full-time employee of The Sydney Morning Herald as well as a weekly guest on the ABC's Tony Delroy Nightlife program which is broadcast on over 150 stations around Australia.

His books include Blood on the Wattle which, in 2000, was nominated as one of the 10 most influential works of non-fiction published in Australia in the twentieth century. He is the Australian editor of Trivial Pursuit and the creator of the 2 million word Walkabout travel site (www.walkabout.com.au) which is also part of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age's website.
www.walkabout.com.au

also appearing at...
138: The Secret Life of Backpackers
273: Colonial Ambition: A Walking Tour of Old Sydney’s Political Sites

IMRAN AHMAD (INTERNATIONAL)Ahmad, Imran
Imran Ahmad was severely traumatised at the age of seven, when Michael Swallow pushed in front of him in the school lunch queue and secured the last plate of fish and chips – leaving Imran no ‘choice’ but a horrid egg flan. He compensated for this loss by subsequently eating fish and chips on every possible occasion for the next 40 years (resulting in a severe reprimand from his cardiologist).

Too lazy to get the grades he needed for medical school, he ended up at Stirling University in Scotland, studying chemistry, learning about Islam and trying to impress women. Ultimately he was quite successful in Chemistry and became quite knowledgeable about Islam as well, but he didn’t impress any women – despite having an Alfa Romeo and a microwave oven (quite possibly the only privately owned microwave on campus at that time).

In careers brochures, he saw people in business suits, travelling and having meetings. (This looked like fun to him, but he wasn't sure what the people in suits actually did.) He persuaded one of those big global companies to hire him into their graduate scheme and he ended up working all over the world.

His book, Unimagined, was selected by no less than three major newspapers (The Independent, The Guardian and The Sydney Morning Herald) in their ‘books of the year’ lists. The Dutch version was released recently and is called Mohammed, Jezus en James Bond (there being no catchy word for ‘Unimagined’ in Dutch, apparently) and the television series is being developed.

Imran is on the Board of British Muslims for Secular Democracy, which opposes the imposition of theological or regressive cultural values on any individual, group or gender.

His business travels in the 90s included many visits to Sydney, where he was on one occasion bumped from his favourite hotel room because some fella called Jackson had booked – in their entirety – the top four storeys of the Sheraton on the Park. But it got even worse. On Imran’s return from the office one day – and despite him proffering his Sheraton Club International card – a bodyguard thug in a leather jacket wouldn’t let him through the screaming crowd into the hotel, saying: “You’ll have to wait until Michael Jackson arrives.” Imran still gets upset when he remembers this.
www.unimagined.co.uk

also appearing at...
59: Not Another Misery Memoir...
120: An Unimagined Evening with Imran Ahmad in Parramatta