Book review: Man on Fire by Stephen Kelman

The new novel from the Booker-nominated author is about a fictionalised friendship between a real-life athlete from India and an Englishman in mid-life crisis.

Bibhuti Bhushan Nayak’s quest for world records is central to his fictionalised alter-ego’s role in Man on Fire. Arko Datta / Reuters

British writer Stephen Kelman’s first novel, Pigeon English, made the Man Booker Prize shortlist in 2011.

It told the story of Harrison, an eleven-year-old Ghanaian boy, who had just arrived in London. He finds himself unwittingly entwined in the dangerous world of gang violence that operates around the inner city housing estate on which he, his mother and older sister make their new home.

Although originally envisaged for adult readership, Kelman’s instinctive grasp of a child’s eye view of the world won him significant praise, and the novel is now a text on the school syllabus in the UK. It’s certainly no fairy tale though, not least because it was inspired in part by the real life tragic murder of ten-year-old Damilola Taylor on a Peckham estate in South London in 2000.

Kelman's new novel, Man on Fire, is in many ways a clear follow-up. It's another fictional story, the roots of which can be found in real life; another exploration of the meeting of two cultures – not the clashing, but rather the melding between them.

Perhaps most significantly, again his command of voice (in this case, two voices, since the narrative is split between his central protagonists) is highly charismatic.

Kelman’s heroes – and I use the term knowingly since this is a story of impressive and inspirational feats of endeavour – are the fictional John Lock, an English estate agent recently diagnosed with cancer; and Bibhuti Bhushan Nayak, the fictionalised alter-ego of the real-life Indian journalist and “extreme sportsman” famous for the numerous world records he holds.

Although the main events in the novel are the product of Kelman’s imagination, the fictional Bibhuti’s backstory is taken from Nayak’s own life. A strict vegetarian, known as the Bruce Lee of Navi Mumbai, where he lives, works and teaches underprivileged children martial arts, it’s clear why Kelman found his subject so fascinating.

When the story begins, after successfully breaking a variety of extremely physically demanding records – number of kicks to the unprotected groin in one minute and a half (an astonishing 43); stomach sit-ups in one hour (1,448, and a brain haemorrhage); backhand push-ups in one minute (133); and smashed concrete slabs of 18kg each in the groin by a sledgehammer (3) – Bibhuti’s latest ambition is the most physically taxing yet: to see how many baseball bats can be broken over his own body.

Over in England, Lock is jolted out of his lethargic existence (a marriage apparently in its death throes and a body that looks set to swiftly follow) when he sees Bibhuti on TV: “It left me bewitched and short of breath. It plucked at my manhood and incited my sense of the magnificent […] I wanted what he had. He shimmered and crackled and the world bent to his will.”

Without stopping to think, he fakes his own death (albeit rather shoddily) and absconds to India to offer Bibhuti all the helps he needs in his forthcoming enterprise.

The conceit is instantly recognisable – an uptight Englishman finds himself in India – but the script is strange and unique. Without context, Bibhuti’s efforts sound like the undertakings of someone who’s lost his mind but slowly a picture forms of a man on a mission to inspire those around him: “What I am doing is telling the people that if they endure the pain they will reach happiness that comes after. My country is very difficult place. A lot of people very poor and hungry. Life is constant struggle against all the odds and natural disasters.”

It's impossible not to at least momentarily ponder issues of ownership and the narration of other people's stories, but Man on Fire never claims to be a straightforward fictional biography, and Nayak clearly gave the project his blessing as there's a short postscript written by him at the end of the book thanking the author "for bringing in cheers on my face after decades of my struggle, poverty and adversity".

Clearly suitably galvanised himself, Kelman’s written a heart-warming tale that examines what it means to look at life’s difficulties head on, from which a message of love and friendship shines through.

This book is available on Amazon.

Lucy Scholes is a freelance journalist who lives in London.