Wimmy Road Boyz by Sufiyaan Salam unfolds over a single night, shaped by a love for stories where exciting events take place within a compressed timeline. Following a group of boys through a night out, it captures how ‘certain nights out can feel huge and cinematic.’ Inspired by the likes of La Haine and Do The Right Thing, the structure shifts from evoking a controlled meandering feeling to a fast-moving car on a bullet-shaped trajectory. Set on the Curry Mile, a famous stretch in Manchester known for having one of the highest concentrations of South Asian eateries, the story carries an ‘infectious, loud, almost obnoxious energy’, in the words of the writer himself.
Screen to Page
As someone who has written for the screen in the past, the form of the novel allowed me to go deep inside the characters’ minds. The free indirect style of the novel just meant I could juxtapose the boys’ inner turmoil with their more superficial chatter on the surface. We can literally flip between outside and inside voices, as well as dip in and out of different characters’ minds at different times, hopefully creating a bit of a mad symphony that feels more like an album than, say, a straight TV drama.
It also allowed me to play with memory and flashbacks a bit more. I find flashbacks get a bit tiresome when used too much in films, but in a novel, they can just mimic the natural flow of the mind, where you can be standing on a street corner in, say, 2026, but suddenly you’re reminded of something that happened in 2016, and now you’re in both places at once. That’s a fun device to use to ramp up extra tension, show how life-changing decisions are being made from the inside.
Drawing On Memories and Media
It’s a fictional story, but I drew on memories and experiences from my own life, as well as just other works of art I love. As well as the two films mentioned above, Trainspotting was a big influence, young men suffering and surviving in a way that is both brutal and very entertaining to read. Kendrick Lamar’s album, good kid, m.a.a.d city, was another huge inspiration, the way it uses the scaffolding of a familiar Compton coming-of-age story but then just adds so much texture and nuance and fun, building an experience that feels true to life and also completely singular.
To be honest, a big thing for me was to be in conversation with works of art like Kendrick’s album, films like La Haine, and even classic novels like The Great Gatsby. I wanted these young, British-Muslim characters from Manchester elevated onto that kind of canvas. Before any other identity marker, they’re humans, and though the surface textures may vary, the inner struggles are always the same.
Challenges
Writing three-seventy pages set on the same night was a challenge! I didn’t realise how insane it was as a concept until I started writing it. My main thing was just making sure none of it was ever boring. I poured over each sentence almost with a magnifying glass, and tried to either switch up or kill anything that was making my mind wander.
I have to say, for the most part, the words were just spilling out of me, it’s maybe the most fast and furious I’ve ever written anything, and towards the end of the project, I couldn't think about anything else. The main challenge was probably staying present in my real life outside of writing hours!
Capturing Being Young and Restless
I think it helped that I was young and restless whilst writing Wimmy Road Boyz. But also, the energy of the Curry Mile itself, where the book is set, kind of speaks for itself. I’ve been heading to the Curry Mile all my life, and lived there for two years. It has this very infectious, loud, almost obnoxious energy that I love. And so actually, all I had to do was translate that manic energy that was all around me, and that I’d been soaking in my whole life, and put it in the book. Also, I started drinking coffee for the first time whilst writing the book. That may have helped.
The Future
I’m working on a bunch of screen projects. A few TV and feature films are in development, and also starting to research a project that may well become my second novel! Whatever I do next, though, I’m very interested in expanding on what I’ve built with both Wimmy Road Boyz and Magid / Zafar (the Bafta-nominated short film I wrote with Luís Hindman).
This is an article from the May EZ. For more such stories, grab your free copy here.
Words Neeraja Srinivasan
Date 8.6.2026