Join Andrew McMillan and Tawseef Kahn as they discuss their brilliant new northern-set novels.  

Set across three generations of a South Yorkshire mining family, Andrew McMillan’s, Pity, is a lament for a lost way of life, as well as a celebration of resilience and the possibility for change.  

In Tawseef Kahn’s debut novel, Determination, we meet Manchester immigration solicitor, Jamila Shah. Working under the shadow of the government’s ‘hostile environment’, she prays and hopes that their ‘determinations’ will result in her clients being allowed to stay. 

Andrew McMillan’s debut poetry collection Physical won numerous awards including the Northern Writers’ Award in 2014 and The Guardian First Book Award. His subsequent collections are Playtime and Pandemonium. Tawseef Khan is an immigration lawyer based in Manchester. His debut non-fiction book Muslim, Actually was published in 2021.  

Chaired by Dr Naomi Booth, Durham University