Plaistow author self publishes book

Newham born author has published a book inspired by Green Street

Shaub Parvez, 35, was born in Plaistow and spent his formative years around the Upton Park and Green Street area.

Although he now lives in Limehouse his experiences of Newham left an indelible mark on him and eventually inspired him to write The Messiah of Green Street.

Its central character is a little boy called Sahil who is born to Bangladeshi immigrants Karim and Anjana. He can allegedly speak Arabic and Hebrew from birth and is treated as a miracle. The book is set in the melting pot of Upton Park and follows the little boy’s journey as he becomes an adult. He becomes more and more disillusioned with his lot in life which takes some unexpected turns as he searches for his own truth.

Shuab, who is a solicitor, has been writing the book since 2004. He began with the central character and let the story develop as it went along. He said: “Writing was a long hard process and was quite difficult - it wasn’t smooth and I did lots of revisions.”

Although the book received positive feedback from a major publisher, especially the opening chapters, Shuab found it hard getting the story published.

He finally decided to take the bull by the horns and get it self-published on Kindle. It has been published digitally by Amazon and is now available on Kindle.

The experience has not put him off as Shuab is keen to pursue a writing career while working as a solicitor.