Biography 1
Hanif Kureishi was born in London to a Pakistani father and an English mother. His father, Rafiushan,
was from a wealthy
He attended
His book The Buddha of Suburbia (1990) won the Whitbread Award for the best first novel, and
was also made into a BBC television series with a soundtrack by David Bowie.
The next year, 1991, saw the release of the feature film entitled London
Kills Me; a film written and directed by Kureishi himself.
His novel Intimacy (1998) revolved around the story of a
man leaving his wife and two young sons after feeling physically and
emotionally rejected by his wife. This created certain controversy as Kureishi
himself had recently left his wife and two young sons. It is assumed to be at
least semi-autobiographical. In 2000/2001 the novel was adapted to a movie Intimacy by Patrice Chéreau, which won two Bears at the Berlin Film Festival: a Golden Bear for Best Film,
and a Silver Bear for Best Actress (Kerry Fox). It was controversial for
its unreserved sex scenes. The book was translated into Persian by Niki Karimi in 2005.
His family have accused him of exploiting them
with thinly disguised references to them in his work and went on record to deny
the claims. His sister Yasmin has accused him of
selling her family "down the line". She wrote, in a letter to The Guardian, that if her family's history had to
become public she would not stand by and let it be "fabricated for the
entertainment of the public or for Hanif's
profit"[citation needed]. She says that his description
of her family's working class roots are fictitious. Their grandfather
was not "cloth cap working class", their mother never worked in a
shoe factory, and their father, she says, was not a bitter old man.
Yasmin takes up issues with her brother not merely for his
thinly disguised autobiographical references in his first novel, Buddha of Suburbia,
but also for the image about his past that he portrays in newspaper interviews.
She wrote: "My father was angry when the Buddha of Suburbia came out as he
felt that Hanif had robbed him of his dignity, and he
didn't speak to Hanif for about a year."
Kureishi's drama The Mother was adapted to a movie by Roger Michell, which won a joint First
Prize in the Director’s Fortnight section at Cannes Film Festival. It showed a
cross-generational relationship with changed roles: a seventy-year-old English
lady and grandmother (played by Anne Reid) who seduces her daughter's
boyfriend (played by Daniel Craig), a thirty-year-old craftsman.
Explicit sex scenes were shown in realistic drawings only, thus avoiding
censorship.
His 2006 screenplay Venus saw Oscar, BAFTA, Screen Actors Guild,
Broadcast Film Critics Association and Golden Globe nominations for Peter O'Toole in the best actor category.
He was appointed Commander
of the Order of the British Empire in the 2008 New Year Honours.
His latest novel, Something to Tell You, was published in 2008.
Kureishi is married and has three sons.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanif_Kureishi#Biography
Academic year 2008/2009
© a.r.e.a./Dr.Vicente
Forés López
© Emma Corbín García
emcorgar @alumni.uv.es
Universitat de València Press