Like every nine-year-old girl, Meena can't wait to grow up and break free from her parents, but as the daughter of the only Punjabi family in the mining village of Tollington, her daily struggle for independence is different from most. She wants fishfingers and chips, not just chapati and dhal; she wants an English Christmas, not the usual interminable Punjabi festivities - but more than anything, more than mini-skirts and the freedom to watch 'Opportunity Knocks', Meena wants to roam the backyards of working-class Tollington with feisty Anita Rutter and her gang.
Written with great warmth and fun and just a hint of wistfulness, 'Anita and Me' is a unique vision of a British childhood in the Sixties, a childhood caught between two cultures, each on the brink of change.
"A marvellous crash course in Asian/Brummie culture. Funny, moving and packed full of wonderful surprises."
ESTHER FREUD, author of 'Hideous Kinky'
"God knows there have been enough memoirs of growing up in the Sixties, but Syal's account has a welcome freshness of perspective. She smartly catches the strangeness and violence of childhood, and skilfully evokes an almost vanished kind of rural working-class life. A promising debut."
GQ
"The crucial ingredient is Meena's relationship with Anita Rutter, local lewd flower, skinny of hip, vicious of nature and owner of a dog called Nigger. Best-friend-best-enemy stories have been done before, but this is a beautifully specific portrait."
CHARLOTTE O'SULLIVAN, 'Observer'