The author of ‘The Buddha of the suburbs’ vents on social networks and in a blog that will be a book: “I don’t want to live in an atmosphere of fear and inhibition”
Hanif Kureishi (London, 1954) has returned to writing, or rather to dictating, after the fall that almost cost him his life in Rome last January. What started as a blog is turning into a book, Shattered (“Shattered”), which will probably see the light of day this year and in which the author of The Buddha of the suburbs tell in his style, openly, his new perspective on life at 68, after having heard “the whisper of death” and of being practically immobilized.
during his convalescence in an Italian hospital, wrapped by his partner, Isabella d’Amico, Kureishi has been a distant witness to the rise of the “cancellation culture” in his country, which has been primed by authors as diverse as Roald Dahl, Agatha Christie or Ian Fleming. In a series of Twitter messages, the author of Pakistani descent has fired left and right in this culture war that is spreading across borders.
Some phrases of the resurrected Kureishi: “There is a sector of the self-destructive left and brimming with aggressive puritanism“. “We have entered a new era of censorship and self-censorship. Both liberals and conservatives are insisting that there are certain things you shouldn’t say or listen to. There is a new terror in this of being able to offend or be offended”. “I don’t want to live in an atmosphere of fear and inhibition, where writers were afraid to express themselves as they are for fear of offending someone.”
Kureishi has also explained why this rebellion: “The function of great writers is to go around the world, defend opinions that go against the prevailing trend. Our job is not to please, but to challenge. and make you think in a different way”.
In other messages on social networks, amplified by the conservative tabloid The Daily MailKureishi charges the inks against “the atmosphere of self-consciousness and fear” that in his opinion is creating “a North Korean state of mind“He himself, he says, has been able to verify it in his career as a professor at Kingston University. “My students are already inhibited. It is a trend that he has noticed over the years in the classroom and that has also permeated the publishing world: the fear that writings will be condemned as sexist or racist or as cultural appropriation.
“There is a contemporary anxiety that is spreading among young writers,” says Kureishi, especially critical of the role of the “sensitive readers” selected by publishers to detect words or expressions that may be offensive for minorities. “There are people who are motivated and excited simply by being able to control the freedom of expression of others.”
His anathema has been interpreted as a critique of culture woke (updating what is “politically correct”) sponsored by sectors of the left, although in his comments he has preferred to simply defend freedom of expression without ideological filters: “The work of writers is to push the boundaries of what can be said or thought”.
“When I wrote The Buddha of the suburbs (in 1990), I was determined to do it as freely and uninhibited as possible,” recalls Kureishi. “The novel is full of racial slurs and politically incorrect language.. I wanted to make it as dirty and fun as my mind wanted. I never hesitated to express something the way I felt it.”
The same creative freedom inspired Kureishi in the script for my beautiful laundressthe Stephen Frears film that broke the taboo on homosexuality in the asian community of London in the middle of the Thatcher era (1985). Throughout eight novels (of Privacy a Nothing at all), two books of short stories (love in sad times) and a dozen theatrical and film scripts (Sammy and Rosie get it on, london kills me, My son the fanatic), the London author has been exploring the profound cultural change in British society in the last four decades.
His next book will be his “memoirs” after the accident in Rome in December 2022, written on the fly for the web as The Kureishi Chronicles and edited as a book by Hamish Hamilton as Shattered. The author has acknowledged that he became “divorced from myself” and “three puffs from death” after fainting in the middle of the street and waking up in the middle of a pool of blood and with his neck twisted.
Kureishi has even acknowledged how he came to see “a semicircular object with something resembling a claw” which he himself has interpreted as a near-death experience… “I would not recommend anyone to have an accident like mine, but I can say that lying, completely inert and silent, in a gray room on the outskirts of Rome, with hardly any distraction, It’s been good for creativity. Unable to pick your nose or pick up a phone, deprived of newspapers, music and all the rest, you suddenly discover that you can be very imaginative.
According to the criteria of
The Trust Project
2023-05-30 22:21:26
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