SUMMARY

From the outside, Pizzeria Vesuvio seems just like any other pizza place in West London: a buzzy, cheerful Italian spot on a street where cooks from Sri Lanka rub shoulders with waitstaff from Spain, Georgia, Wales, Poland, and more. But upstairs, on the battered leather sofas, lives are being altered drastically and often illegally, as money, legal aid, safe passage, and hope are dealt out under the table to those deemed worthy. Set in the opening years of the 21st century, against the backdrop of the Sri Lankan civil war and its outpouring of refugees to Britain, You People asks the big questions at a time of bewildering flux. What price do we put on life, on freedom, and the right to love in an age defined by seismic political change?

Praise for You People

“Lalwani has a knack for close observation of people: their mannerisms and motivations, the way they relate to each other in different situations… Crucially, though, pain is not the defining experience of these characters… Fiction is not a blueprint, but it can be a gilded mirror, or a four-dimensional map. Living, loving, dying—You People is an elegant work of all three.”
—The Seattle Times