Bloody Immigrants
A story of immigration, identity, family and revenge.
When a family leaves Lahore for London in search of a better life, they discover that starting again comes with a price. Decades later, the past returns with consequences that would change everything.
“Bloody Immigrants explores what happens when the search for justice becomes impossible to separate from the desire for revenge.”
A PAST THAT REFUSES TO STAY BURIED.
Bloody Immigrants follows Zaid Sadiq and his family from Pakistan to East London in the 1970s, where hope runs up against racism, poverty, and violence.
Zaid grew up in Canning Town, where he witnessed the devastating effects of hatred on his family. His parents’ sacrifices to build a better life left deep scars. And as Zaid grows older, his desire for justice begins to cross a dangerous line.
Years later, Zaid has built a successful life as a neurologist. When the past comes back to haunt him all those years later, Zaid must confront the choices he thought he’d left behind and realizes too late that the consequences are dire.
ABOUT
Some stories begin with an idea. Others begin with a life.
Biography
Bilal’s writing is deeply interested in the experiences that shape us: where we come from, where we belong, and how the places we leave behind continue to influence who we become. Bloody Immigrants explores these questions through the story of one family navigating a changing Britain.
The novel draws on themes of immigration, identity, family, prejudice and belonging. Set primarily in Britain, it follows a journey that begins with a family’s arrival from Pakistan and unfolds across decades of personal and social change.
For Bilal, writing Bloody Immigrants is also an opportunity to explore the complicated emotions surrounding migration. The excitement of starting a new life can exist alongside loneliness, discrimination, cultural expectations and the struggle to find a place in a new country.
Four Countries,
One Life. One Story.
Every journey leaves something behind—and brings something with it. For Bilal, these four countries form different parts of a life shaped by movement, change, identity and belonging.
My Immigration StoryTHE STORY BEHIND THE STORY
Why I Wrote Bloody Immigrants
Bloody Immigrants is a fictional story, but its questions are very real.
This Fictional novel is dedicated to my parents. I realized, as a serial immigrant myself, who moved with my parents and siblings to the UK from Pakistan all the way back in the early 70’s, and then later in life I migrated with my wife and kids to Belgium, and now settled in Canada, that my immigration story is one of privilege, unlike that of my parents.
What does it mean to leave your home and start again somewhere unfamiliar? How does discrimination shape a family? What happens when experiences from childhood remain with us for decades? And where is the line between justice and revenge?
A new country. A new beginning. A world that isn’t ready to welcome them.
From Lahore to the streets of Canning Town, the Sadiq family’s journey unfolds against a London shaped by economic hardship, racial tension and enormous social change.
The city becomes more than a setting. It is part of Zaid’s story, a place where family, prejudice, ambition and identity collide.
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