One night, when I am old, sick, right out of semen, and don't need things to get any worse, I hear the noises growing louder. I am sure they are making love in Zenab's bedroom which is next to mine.Waldo, a fêted filmmaker, is confined by old age and ill health to his London apartment. Frail and frustrated, he is cared for by his lovely younger wife, Zee. But when he suspects that Zee is beginning an affair with Eddie, 'more than an acquaintance and less than a friend for over thirty years,' Waldo is pressed to action: determined to expose the couple, he sets himself first to prove his suspicions correct - and then to enact his revenge.Written with characteristic black humour and with an acute eye for detail, Kureishi's eagerly awaited novella will have his readers dazzled once again by a brilliant mind at work.
“Hanif Kureishi’s best novel since The Buddha of Suburbia” (The Independent, UK): a mischievous, wickedly funny, and intellectually deft story about a young biographer and the famous and reclusive novelist who is his subject. Mamoon Azam is an eminent Indian-born writer who has made a career in England—but now, in his early seventies, his reputation is fading, his book sales are nonexistent, and the expensive habits of his flamboyant second wife are bleeding him dry. In a final attempt to revitalize his career, Mamoon’s publisher commissions Harry, an ambitious young writer, to produce a provocative biography to bring Mamoon back into the public eye. Harry sets off for Mamoon’s estate, where he finds not the literary hero he had imagined, but a vain, bigoted, cynical, and cruelly manipulative genius, who quickly turns the tables on his ambitious young biographer. Harry must insinuate, seduce, and finesse the truth out of the extravagant and damaged characters in Mamoon’s surreal sphere as the young writer and the old master battle for the last word in the story of Mamoon’s life. Acute and brilliantly entertaining, The Last Word is a tale of youthful exuberance and the misery of outgrowing it, as hilarious as it is moving. It is Kureishi’s wisest work to date.
Jamal Khan, a psychoanalyst in his fifties living in London, is haunted by memories of his teens: his first love, Ajita; the exhilaration of sex, drugs and politics; and a brutal act of violence which changed his life for ever. As he and his best friend Henry attempt to make the sometimes painful, sometimes comic transition to their divorced middle age, balancing the conflicts of desire and dignity, Jamal's teenage traumas make a shocking reappearance in his present life.'A great comic writer and a peerless connoisseur of the human mystery.' Independent'A novel that describes with such elegant seriousness the fear of ageing, the inanition of pleasure, the survival of love, the longing to understand and be understood.' Sunday Telegraph'A vital, teeming, panoramic, immersive novel.' Time Out'There is more that is worth thinking about in Something to Tell You than in the work of almost any other current British novelist.' Evening Standard
No one else casts such a shrewd and gimlet eye on contemporary life.' - William Boyd Comic, dark and insightful, What Happened? is Hanif Kureishi's new collection of essays and fiction. No topic is too fringe or too mainstream for this insatiable-and much-loved-author. From social media to the ancient classics, from appraisals of David Bowie to Georges Simenon to Keith Jarrett, this is the latest literary 'event' in a unique body of work that displays Kureishi's characteristic boundless curiosity and wit. What Happened? is as much about the very fact of Kureishi's catholic appetite for culture as his observations and insights themselves, and any new book in his oeuvre is a justification for celebration.
Over the past 10 years Hanif Kureishi has charted the gradual widening of the gulf between fundamentalist Islam and Western values. Starting with THE BLACK ALBUM, Kureishi portrayed the ongoing argument between Islam and Western liberal values, between Islamic certainty and Western rational scepticism. By the time he was writing the short sotry, MY SON THE FANATIC, the break was complete - there was no longer any attempt by the fundmentalists to find any common ground with Western culture. The outbreak of the Iraq war and its aftermath, plus the recent bombings in London, have stimulated Kureishi to write further about this great divide between the East and the West, and this volume collects Kureishi's writings from the past 10 years which have have dealt with this subject, charting Islam's disengangemnt from dialogue with the West. The volume also contains a new piece, written especially for this book, which brings Kureishi's analysis of the situation right up to date.
With VENUS, Hanif Kureishi turns his piercing gaze onto the pains of old age. Maurice (Peter O'Toole) and Ian (Leslie Phillips) are veteran stage actors whose slow, inevitable decline is disrupted by the arrival in their lives of Ian's niece Jessie (Jodie Whittaker). While Jessie's housekeeping skills make for a bone of contention with Ian, Maurice finds himself attracted to her. Kureishi has crafted a disturbing, wry and profoundly moving swansong for his characters. Also included in this volume is an Introduction by Kureishi in which he describes the inspiration he drew from the Japanese master Tanizaki.
One of The Millions Most Anticipated Books for Spring! Featured in Alta Magazine's Top Books for May! Short stories from 25 emerging and established writers of Middle Eastern and North African origins, a unique collection of voices and viewpoints that illuminate life in the global Arab/Muslim world. "Provocative and subtle, nuanced and surprising, these stories demonstrate how this complicated and rich region might best be approached—through the power of literature."—Viet Thanh Nguyen, author of The Committed Stories from the Center of the World gathers new writing from the greater Middle East (or SWANA), a vast region that stretches from Southwest Asia, through the Middle East and Turkey, and across Northern Africa. The 25 authors included here come from a wide range of cultures and countries, including Palestine, Syria, Pakistan, Iran, Lebanon, Egypt, and Morocco, to name some. In “Asha and Haaji,” Hanif Kureishi takes up the cause of outsiders who become uprooted when war or disaster strikes and they flee for safe haven. In Nektaria Anastasiadou’s “The Location of the Soul According to Benyamin Alhadeff,” two students in Istanbul from different classes — and religions that have often been at odds with one another — believe they can overcome all obstacles. MK Harb’s story, “Counter Strike,” is about queer love among Beiruti adolescents; and Salar Abdoh’s “The Long Walk of the Martyrs” invites us into the world of former militants, fighters who fought ISIS or Daesh in Iraq and Syria, who are having a hard time readjusting to civilian life. In “Eleazar,” Karim Kattan tells an unexpected Palestinian story in which the usual antagonists — Israeli occupation forces — are mostly absent, while another malevolent force seems to overtake an unsuspecting family. Omar El Akkad’s “The Icarist” is a coming-of-age story about the underworld in which illegal immigrants are forced to live, and what happens when one dares to break away. Contributors include: Salar Abdoh, Leila Aboulela, Farah Ahamed, Omar El Akkad, Sarah AlKahly-Mills, Nektaria Anastasiadou, Amany Kamal Eldin, Jordan Elgrably, Omar Foda, May Haddad, Danial Haghighi, Malu Halasa, MK Harb, Alireza Iranmehr, Karim Kattan, Hanif Kureishi, Ahmed Salah Al-Mahdi, Diary Marif, Tariq Mehmood, Sahar Mustafah, Mohammed Al-Naas, Ahmed Naji, Mai Al-Nakib, Abdellah Taia, and Natasha Tynes
Hanif Kureishi's groundbreaking 1984 screenplay My Beautiful Laundrette immediately received an Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay. In addition to his screenplays and fiction Kureishi is also the author of several popular essays which are collected here, together with My Beautiful Laundrette, in a single volume for the first time. This remarkable collection shows the emergence of a major writer who is equally at home in the diverse worlds of film, fiction and non-fiction. It proves without doubt that Hanif Kureishi is one of Britain's most enduring literary talents.
Religion is for the benefit of the masses, not for brain-box types like you. Those simpletons require strict rules for living, otherwise they would still think the earth sits on three fishes. But you mind-wallahs must know it's a lot of balls. An Asian kid from Kent goes to college in London and teams up with a sympathetic group of anti-racists. But it's 1989, the year of the fatwa, and as Shahid begins a hedonistic affair with his lecturer, his radical Muslim friends want to steer him away from the decadence of the West. We're not blasted Christians. We don't turn the other buttock. We will fight for our people who are being tortured anywhere - in Palestine, Afghanistan, Kashmir, East End! Hanif Kureishi's witty stage adaptation of his strikingly prescient and acclaimed novel, The Black Album, humorously considers how the events of 1989 have shaped today's world, where fundamentalism battles liberalism. A co-production with Tara Arts, The Black Album premiered at the National Theatre, London, in July 2009.
In the essay 'The Rainbow Sign', which was first published in 1986 along with the screenplay of My Beautiful Laundrette, Kureishi recounts how, growing up in England, where racists 'weren't discriminating in their racial discrimination', he could understand the motives of 'a black boy who, [having] noticed that burnt skin turned white, jumped into a bath of boiling water'. Then, visiting Pakistan for the first time, Kureishi shook with incomprehension at the notion that he was not considered a foreigner. The collection's title piece is a fascinating account of how Kureishi overcame his 'educational anorexia', how curiosity developed, and how school-teaching could work if only those at the front of the class didn't loathe their pupils.
The centrepiece of Hanif Kureishi's brilliant new collection of fiction delves into the fascinating concept of personal identity, and the extent to which this is rooted in our physical being.Middle-aged playwright Adam is amazed to be approached by a shadowy organisation and offered the chance to trade in his decrepit body for a much younger model. He takes up the offer for a six-month period, and his consciousness is duly transplanted into the handsome body of his choice. But Adam soon finds that his new flesh brings with it grave and unforeseen dangers . . .
I was beginning to love my thief, a man I barely knew, but whom I had trusted and even liked, and who had taken my savings, amongst many other crimes.' A bravura piece of very personal reportage by Hanif Kureishi about the man who stole his life savings. Nearing sixty and needing to plan for his and his children's future, Hanif Kureishi employed an accountant from a reputable firm. When the accountant recommended investing in a property scheme, Kureishi followed his advice - only to find out that the accountant was a fraudster and his entire life savings had vanished. In this thought-provoking account of his conman, Kureishi uses this theft as a way of exploring some of the contradictions and dilemmas of our lives: the true value of money; the role of deception in art; how you can love and hate simultaneously; why the financial world seems to revolve around deceit; and what we might recover from those who have stolen from us.
Gabriel's father, a washed-up rock musician, has been chucked out of the house. His mother works nights in a pub and sleeps days. Navigating his way through the shattered world of his parents' generation, Gabriel dreams of being an artist. He finds solace and guidance through a mysterious connection to his deceased twin brother, Archie, and his own knack for producing real objects simply by drawing them. A chance visit with mega-millionaire rock star Lester Jones, his father's former band mate, provides Gabriel with the means to heal the rift within his family. Kureishi portrays Gabriel's naïve hope and artistic aspirations with the same insight and searing honesty that he brought to the Indian-Anglo experience in The Buddha of Suburbia and to infidelity in Intimacy. Gabriel's Gift is a humorous and tender meditation on failure, redemption, the nature of talent, the power of imagination -- and a generation that never wanted to grow up, seen through the eyes of their children.
In Hanif Kureishi's latest play -- his first new work for the stage since the 1980s -- the century is drawing to a dose and the middle-aged media barons and their acolytes have come together in the English countryside in yet another attempt to find meaning in Eves fitted with work, boredom, and sex. In recounting the casual deceptions and random couplings that make up the center of their existence, Stephen, Charles, Lorraine, Julie, Russell Sophie, and Barry find that the tack of rear engagement j that characterizes their work somehow makes it impossible for them to connect later as human beings.
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