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Barnes & Noble Book of the Year 2026 Winners Shop NowBarnes & Noble Book of the Year 2026 Winners Shop Now

Who They Was

Hardcover
$26.00
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Longlisted for the Booker Prize
Named a Most Anticipated Book of Summer 2021 by Entertainment Weekly, Time, and CrimeReads
Named a Best Book of 2021 by Time

An astonishing, visceral autobiographical novel about a young man straddling two cultures: the university where he is studying English Literature and the disregarded world of London gang warfare.

The unforgettable narrator of this compelling, thought-provoking debut goes by two names in his two worlds. At the university he attends, he’s Gab...