Who They Was
Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2020
A Spectator Book of the Year
‘A literary rendering of the Top Boy generation… I cannot conjure another work which captures this culture in such depth – or with such brutal honesty – as only lived experience can tell ’ Graeme Armstrong, author of The Young Team
’An astonishingly powerful book’ Cathy Rentzenbrink, author of The Last Act of Love
This life is like being in an ocean. Some people keep swimming towards the bottom. Some people touch the bottom with one foot, or even both, and then push themselves off it to get back up to the top, where you can breathe. Others get to the bottom and decide they want to stay there. I don’t want to get to the bottom because I’m already drowning.
This is a story of a London you won’t find in any guidebooks.
This is a story about what it’s like to exist in the moment, about boys too eager to become men, growing up in the hidden war zones of big cities – and the girls trying to make it their own way.
This is a story of reputations made and lost, of violence and vengeance – and never counting the cost.
This is a story of concrete towers and blank eyed windows, of endless nights in police stations and prison cells, of brotherhood and betrayal.
This is about the boredom, the rush, the despair, the fear and the hope.
This is about what’s left behind.
‘An astonishingly powerful book. Krauze is an immense new talent’ Cathy Rentzenbrink, author of The Last Act of Love -
”'Magnificent in its relentless intensity and searing honesty, this is a new voice arriving fully formed and raring to go” - Booker Prize judges 2020
”'It is exceptional” - Candice Carty-Williams, author of Queenie
”'A wild ride from the very first page. An astonishing telling of a young man's search for belonging, caught between a life of crime with his London gang and hopes for his academic future” - Douglas Stuart, author of Shuggie Bain
”'Arrives on the literary scene like the sound of gunfire over a south Kilburn housing estate … With its distinctive argot and moments of ultraviolence, Who They Was is akin to A Clockwork Orange - except that instead of a well-heeled author’s fantastical brainchild, it is a hyperrealistic tale from a writer who has lived the lifestyle it describes” - Guardian
”'By turns visceral, funny, moving and appalling … a powerful evocation of gang life on this estate in south Kilburn” - The Times
”'Who They Was could—and should—prove a historical turning point for British literature and future, as yet unheard, voices” - Complex
”'There is a lot of soul-searching, but it is never allowed to interrupt the action for long; Gabriel is just as likely to be witnessing somebody else’s navel being sliced open as gazing at his own … he writes honestly and infesctiously about the buzz that comes with committing violent crime … he has plenty of talent to see him through” - Telegraph
”'I cannot conjure another work which captures this culture in such depth - or with such brutal honesty - as only lived experience can tell. This is a literary rendering of the Top Boy generation Krauze's voice is stuck in my head and it is an authentic voice of the streets” - Graeme Armstrong, author of The Young Team