Reviews of Suhayl Saadi's writing
‘Suhayl Saadi’s ambitious first novel, Psychoraag, an intimate 400-page sprawl covering six early-morning graveyard-shift hours in the life of an on-air Asian-Glaswegian DJ, came out earlier this year … a book about race and invisibility, voice and silence, whose central theme is the question of whether anyone out there is actually listening.’ Ali Smith, The Guardian
‘Psychoraag is not just Midnight’s Children-meets-Trainspotting because Saadi is more thoughtful than Welsh or Rushdie.’ Angus Calder, The Sunday Herald
‘You might expect
the first-ever Asian Scottish novel to have a fair degree of ambition, but
Suhayl Saadi’s Psychoraag has it in towering abundance, plunging
straight into an interior monologue that lasts for more than 400 pages and
flashes with half a dozen different languages.’
David Robinson,
The Scotsman
‘The title of the novel Psychoraag is inspired. The rest of the book is, too … Saadi’s trick … is to combine the modern and the ancient, East and West. It’s not a construct; not a clever idea designed to entrap a publisher and then a reader. It’s how Suhayl lives and breathes. Five snatched minutes of conversation at a crossroads can spin easily from a discussion of the latest CD by Shakira to the social deprivation of Glasgow housing estates via a panegyric of anonymous 19th century flamenco lyricists. Suhayl’s Scotland contains all of that, and it’s one of the reasons why it’s so important he’s around.’ Chris Dolan, The Herald
‘It is a wonderfully audacious, linguistically elastic, verbally inventive, joyously irreverent work of literature.’Alan Taylor, The Sunday Herald
‘Psychoraag—in
its multi-vernacular, rambling, frenzied, helter-skelter fashion—sings.’
The Barcelona Review
While Suhayl is rushing away and I’m saying goodbye, I try to imagine what his next novel will be like: perhaps it will have the same lulling rhythm of songs played by Sufi minstrels, the same energy and anger of Indian rebel poet Kagi Nazrul Islam, the stream of consciousness of James Joyce and the visionary realism slightly tinted with historical and political themes of many Argentinean authors. After all, these elements can already be detected in Psychoraag and in other works by Saadi and are the reasons why his poems, prose, essays and articles are fresh, entertaining and will definitely help him to be included among the new exciting voices of contemporary literature. No, not of English, Scottish or British literature, but of international literature.’ Anna Battista, Erasing Clouds
‘Suhayl Saadi’s debut collection of short stories is a small treasure. His is such a unique voice in Scottish literature it is impossible not to get swept up in his many experiments with form and content… Funny, clever and complex, his Scots Asian voice is very fresh, and reminiscent of masters like Salman Rushdie and Alan Warner and, on this evidence, Saadi may soon be at the point of having few contemporary rivals. Tricky and challenging but full of wit and repressed wisdom.’ The List
‘A second reading of this fine collection would undoubtedly reveal more structural and thematic connections. Its rich prose, which dares to be different with its unusual metaphors and striking turns of phrase, is the kind of language one often encounters with those not writing in their first language (Conrad, Nabokov, Kosinski), which is to say bold, fresh and wholly original. Of course, unlike them, Saadi’s native language is English, but just as the ancestral religious strains rise up through the young boy in “Bandanna,” so does an exotic linguistic strain work its way through Saadi’s prose, giving it an innovative, distinctive literary flair. It is a striking debut collection – moving, passionate, and intellectually stimulating – which leaves you longing for more.’ The Barcelona Review