A perfect Sunday with... Stefan Mohamed
Shakshuka, All-Star Superman, and reading with no particular agenda
Every week, a top writer, artist, actor or creator reveals how they’d fill their perfect Sunday, sharing their favourite comfort reads, movies, food… anything that would make their weekend great.
Today, it's the turn of The House on Utopia Way author, Stefan Mohamed!
Stefan's perfect Sunday… brunch
There’s a place in Bristol called Porto Lounge where my family and I sometimes go for brunch, and they do a lovely shakshuka - a couple of poached eggs in a spicy tomato sauce, with chickpeas, spinach, chorizo and flatbread. It’s delicious.
Or if I’m at home, probably a bowl of cereal, because in some ways you never really leave your student house.
Stefan's perfect Sunday… read
I recently read Futuromania: Electronic Dreams, Desiring Machines and Tomorrow’s Music Today, a book of essays by Simon Reynolds, probably my favourite music writer. It’s made up of features and interviews he’s written over the decades for outlets like Pitchfork, Wired, Melody Maker etc, arranged to tell a broadly chronological story of the development of what he calls ‘machine music’ - from Giorgio Moroder and Donna Summer putting out ‘I Feel Love’ in the 70s, through acid house in the 80s, jungle in the 90s, dubstep in the 2000s and so on. It touches on a really eclectic selection of artists, from Yellow Magic Orchestra and Isao Tomita to Omni Trio and Jlin, with diversions on SF movie music and the portrayal of music in SF literature, and makes some really interesting connections.
This is all absolute catnip for me because I’m fascinated by the history of music, the kind of butterfly effect of somebody randomly deciding to do something you weren’t supposed to do with a synthesizer in 1975, and that experimentation leading to entirely new sounds, genres, industries etc. Reynolds is hugely knowledgeable and erudite, and I’ve found dipping into those essays very relaxing during a period of quite intense work. Kind of gutted I’ve finished it!
Stefan's perfect Sunday… comic
My comfort comic is probably All-Star Superman by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely. It’s my favourite depiction of Superman, it captures the character’s uncomplicated goodness while still making him a compelling figure, which isn’t always easy with pure-hearted characters.
Quitely’s art is so bright and vibrant and welcoming, and I love how Morrison just casually tosses out idea after idea, page after page, just throwing stuff at the wall and then swaggering on. It’s an aspect of their writing that can grate when the balance is off, but it’s spot-on here. And even though the series has drama and stakes, it doesn’t feel any need to be edgy or subversive. It’s a real hug of a comic. I’m really hoping the new movie captures some of that energy.
Stefan's perfect Sunday... movie
Possibly an odd choice as it’s about a hitman and has a not inconsiderable body count, but I’ve always found Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai a very soothing, almost meditative watch. It’s a dark comedy thriller from 1999, written and directed by Jim Jarmusch, in which Forest Whitaker plays an assassin who lives by the code of the samurai. He also keeps pigeons, and his best friend is a French guy who drives an ice cream van, and neither of them speaks the other’s language.
The film has a wonderfully dry sense of humour, and while there is some action it’s not fast paced at all, it’s quite languorous. And it’s got a fantastically vibey soundtrack by RZA from Wu-Tang Clan. A real gem.
Stefan's perfect Sunday... TV binge
I’m a recent convert to Twin Peaks, to the extent that I’ve been aware of myself being quite annoying about it, as if I’m the first person to discover this foundational TV show is actually pretty good. I tried it about a decade ago and could not get on a level with it at all, but following David Lynch’s passing I thought I should give it another go. And I’m not sure why, but this time it just clicked, and I ended up mainlining the whole thing over the course of February and March.
Again, considering the subject matter, you wouldn’t necessarily think this would be a relaxing watch - and there are obviously parts that are deeply upsetting. But there’s something about the atmosphere of those original two seasons, the off-kilter sensibility, those wonderful lived-in locations like the Double R Diner, all those incredible characters, Angelo Badalamenti’s music. Somehow it’s just a pleasant place to spend some time.
Fire Walk With Me and The Return not so much - both incredible, but about as far from comfort viewing as it’s possible to get…
Stefan's perfect Sunday… podcast
Ross Sutherland’s Imaginary Advice is appointment listening for me, if I get the opportunity to sit down with a cup of tea and listen to the latest episode, that’s a real treat.
Ross is an incredibly original, strange and hilarious writer, and every episode of Imaginary Advice is a new piece that he’s written, performed and produced entirely himself. You never know what it’s going to be. It might be an unhinged mock interview with a guy who claims that Stanley Kubrick hired him to write out every individual page of the ‘All Work And No Play Makes Jack A Dull Boy’ book for The Shining. Or a monologue of someone asking a DJ for increasingly abstract requests over a bed of ambient electronica. Or something completely different! His production skills are as good as his writing, so it’s always a feast for the ears and brain.
Stefan's perfect Sunday… album
I’d probably struggle to actually listen to it at home on a Sunday because of some of the language, as I have a seven-year-old running around, but Telefone, the first album by the rapper Noname, is real Sunday afternoon vibes for me. It has this wonderfully bright, colourful production style, kind of child-like - almost guileless - and she has a lovely, laid-back, conversational style of rapping. It’s from 2016, and while I’ve enjoyed the stuff she’s put out since, none of it has hit the spot for me like Telefone.
Alternatively, I really like having Classic FM on at the weekend while meandering around the house doing bits and pieces. It was always on at home when I was a kid, though my parents have actually abandoned it because they think it treats classical music like sonic wallpaper. They’re not necessarily wrong! But I do find it very relaxing.
Stefan's perfect Sunday… treat
My son has recently started reading by himself - he loves comics like Dogman, Cat Kid Comic Club and Bumble and Snug. That’s been a lovely development, and I’ve been really enjoying having time where we’re all just sitting quietly, reading our respective books. It’s a nice way for us all to be together while also being engaged in our own stuff. So yeah, just sitting around reading with no particular agenda is a treat for me!
THE HOUSE ON UTOPIA WAY IS AVAILABLE NOW
How do you find out the truth in a world where the concept no longer applies?
A dame walks into a detective’s office and asks him to find a missing girl. A familiar setup. You might have seen it before.
Or maybe not. Because this detective is woken every morning by a talking magpie, and the reflection he sees in the mirror doesn’t belong to him. And before he can start looking for the girl, he needs to find out if she ever existed in the first place.
Welcome to the nameless city, a fractured metropolis where geography is malleable and reality is relative. Where consensus is a memory, and memory is the least reliable currency around.
And wandering these shifting streets, Johnny Orange, a ‘sort-of detective’. As a rule, Johnny likes to think he knows what’s going on. But between bounty hunting families, terrorist mimes, mythical doomsday weapons and a steady stream of unanswerable questions, he’s starting to realise that his grip on reality is more fragile than he thought.
Does he have a hope in hell of figuring out what’s going on?
Well, he is a detective.
Sort of…
Stefan Mohamed is the award-winning author of four novels and four books of poetry. His first novel, Bitter Sixteen, won the 2010 Sony Reader Award (part of the Dylan Thomas Prize), and was published by Salt Publishing in 2015. It was also named a Top Teen Read of the Year by The Guardian. Its sequels Ace of Spiders and Stanly’s Ghost, and standalone adult fantasy mystery Falling Leaves, are also published by Salt. The House On Utopia Way is Stefan’s first self-published novel.
Stefan has also written two full-length poetry collections, PANIC! (Burning Eye Books) and Farewell Tour (Verve Poetry Press), and two shorter collections, The Marketplace of Ideas (Stewed Rhubarb Press) and Something Man-Made Is Here And It Is Dangerous (Broken Sleep Books). His third full-length collection will be published in 2026.
Stefan was also the 2021 recipient of the Sansom Award for Bristol Writers for his short story ‘Reservation’.
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