“[A] striking debut… a sterling portrait of personal revelation, cuts to the bone.”
— Publishers Weekly Starred Review
“A powerful articulation of what it means to navigate not just identities, but borders and possibility.”
— Dwayne Betts, author of Felon
“A searing cautionary tale.”
— Quill & Quire
“This breathtaking, brilliant memoir had me from page one.”
— Amy Chua, author of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother and Political Tribes
“Aziz puts into words what it feels like to be a child of immigrant parents, with all the attendant feelings, hopes, fears, and struggles.”
— Columbia Tribune
“An essential memoir.”
— Akhil Sharma, author of Family Life
As a first-generation Pakistani Muslim boy growing up on the outskirts of wealthy, white downtown Toronto, Omer Aziz felt divided between two worlds not quite his own. But after a turning point—seeing President Obama on television for the first time during his senior year of high school—Omer had an epiphany: with education, dedication, and sheer determination, anything is possible. And so began Omer’s stratospheric rise through some of the most prestigious institutions in the West. But all the while, his own feelings of doubt and insecurity were never far behind. Now, in Brown Boy, Aziz considers his achievements and poses the questions he couldn’t ask in his youth. Was assimilation ever really an option? Can anyone truly transcend the perils of race and class?
Brown Boy is a poetic debut about the price of upward mobility, the pursuit of knowledge, and the politics of being Brown and coming of age at a time of change and upheaval.