Biography 2

Born December 5, 1954 in Bromley, England, to an Indian father and an English mother, Hanif Kureishi grew up experiencing first-hand the racial and cultural clashes that he addresses in most of his work. The inspiration for his work has been drawn from his own life's trials and tribulations as a hybrid of two different races and cultures. Kureishi decided that he wanted to be a writer from a young age, and began writing novels that were considered for publication while he was still a teenager.

He studied philosophy at King's College, University of London, and then supported himself by writing pornography under the pseudonym Antonia French. After a humble beginning as an usher for the Royal Theater, Kureishi later became the theater's writer in residence. His first play, Soaking Up the Heat, was produced in 1976 at London's Theater Upstairs. His second play, The Mother Country, won the Thames Television Playwright Award in 1980. His breakthrough came with his first play for the Royal Court Theater, Borderline, about immigrants living in London. This led him to have his work, Outskirts, performed by London's Royal Shakespeare Company.

Kureishi's first efforts with film were successful and gained him a larger audience, especially in America. His screenplay for My Beautiful Laundrette was written in 1985, and tells the story of a young Pakistani immigrant who opens a laundromat with his gay, white lover. Critics from both sides of the Atlantic praised Kureishi; one reviewer, Ian Jack, said, "here at last is a story about immigrants which shows them neither as victims nor tradition-bound aliens. They're comprehensible, modern people with an eye to the main chance, no better or worse than the rest of us." Despite the rave reviews, some Pakistani organizations felt that they were being portrayed in a negative manner as homosexuals and drug dealers. To them, a character of Pakistani origin represented the entire Pakistani community, and should display a positive stereotype to American and British audiences. Kureishi rejects the politics of representation; he does not assume this role of an ambassador representing his minority, preferring to depict the harsher realities of racism and class divisions.

After My Beautiful Laundrette won several awards, including the Best Screenplay award from the New York Film Critics Circle, Kureishi scripted his next film with the controversial title Sammy and Rosie Get Laid. Exploring the world of a racially mixed couple living in London during the race riots, it received less critical acclaim than his previous film. Kureishi made a triumphal return in 1990 with his first semi-autobiographical novel, The Buddha of Suburbia. It is about the life of a young bisexual man, who is half-Indian and half-English, growing up in London. It won the Whitbread Book of the Year Award for the first novel category of the Booksellers Association of Great Britain and Ireland.

In 1991, Kureishi made his directorial debut with London Kills Me, which he also wrote. In this film, he expanded on his interest in street life by focusing on the world of drugs and gangs. He also returns to one of his recurring themes by addressing homelessness. As the son of an immigrant, Kureishi has written a great deal on the concept of home, describing the complexities involved in finding a place to belong. In another novel, The Black Album, he delves into the painful, lonely, and confused world of a young man of Pakistani origin, who finds himself having to choose between his white lover and his Muslim friends. The novel makes many references to pop culture, especially music and drugs, which feature in a great deal of Kureishi's writings.

http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Kureishi.html

Academic year 2008/2009
© a.r.e.a./Dr.Vicente Forés López
© Emma Corbín García
emcorgar @alumni.uv.es
Universitat de València Press