Biography
3
Playwright, screenwriter,
novelist and film-maker Hanif Kureishi was born in
His screenplay for the film My Beautiful Laundrette, directed by Stephen
Frears, was nominated for an Academy Award. The film was critically acclaimed
for its sensitive depiction of a homosexual relationship between a gay skinhead
and a young Asian man. He also wrote the screenplays for Sammy and Rosie Get
Laid and London Kills Me (1991), which he also directed. His
film My Son the Fanatic was adapted from his short story included in Love
in a Blue Time (1997). The film was first shown at the 1997 Cannes Film
Festival. His play Sleep With Me (1999) was
first performed at the National Theatre in
Kureishi's first novel was the semi-autobiographical The Buddha of Suburbia,
published in 1990. Karim, the novel's young hero ('an
Englishman born and bred - almost'), like Kureishi, has a Pakistani father and
an English mother. The novel describes Karim's
struggle for social and sexual identity, a comic coming-of-age novel and a
satirical portrait of race relations in
His second novel, The Black Album (1995), explores some of the issues
facing the Muslim community living in
Intimacy (1998), a novella, is a painful account of a man's decision to
leave his partner and two young sons. It was produced as a film in 2001
starring Mark Rylance and Kerry Fox. His second short
story collection, Midnight All Day (1999), continues to explore very
personal issues about human relationships and sexual desire.
Gabriel's Gift (2001) tells the story of a 15-year-old schoolboy whose
artistic skills enable him to survive the trauma of his parents' separation. Dreaming
and Scheming: Reflections on Writing and Politics, a collection of Hanif Kureishi's non-fiction, including essays and diary
fragments, as well as a new collection of short fiction, The Body and Other
Stories, were both published in 2002. The Word and the Bomb
(2005), is also a collection of non-fictional writings.
Hanif Kureishi's latest works are the play, Venus (2007), and
the novel, Something to Tell You
(2008). He became a CBE in
www.contemporarywriters.com/authors/profile/?p=auth57
Academic year 2008/2009
© a.r.e.a./Dr.Vicente Forés López
© Emma Corbín García
emcorgar @alumni.uv.es
Universitat de València Press