Interview: Hanif Kureishi on ‘Shattered’ and His Reading Life

Life took a sudden, terrible turn when the prolific novelist and screenwriter suffered catastrophic spine damage in late 2022. In an email interview, he described how blogging “helped me survive.” SCOTT HELLER

How do you organize your books?

I have a vague idea of where everything is, though I have spent whole afternoons looking for particular volumes. Since my accident, when I became tetraplegic, I am unable to access my library at all or open a physical copy of any book.

What kind of reader were you as a child?

I read a tremendous amount: adventure stories, school stories, biographies of sportsmen and, later, the European classics, which my father had in his library. I am surprised by how little I remember. It’s all gone, except for a memory of pleasure which never leaves me.

What’s the last great book you read (or listened to)?

In hospital I listened to Miriam Margolyes reading Dickens’s “Bleak House,” doing all the voices. Pure genius.

What’s the funniest book you’ve ever read?

Probably “Joy in the Morning,” by P.G. Wodehouse.

The filthiest?

“Story of O.”

What’s your favorite book no one else has heard of?

Edmund Bergler’s “The Superego: Unconscious Conscience, the Key to the Theory and Therapy of Neurosis.”

What’s the best book you’ve ever received as a gift?

Just before my accident somebody gave me a novel by Andrea Lawlor called “Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl,” which I read twice. It’s a picaresque set in the early ’90s in various American locations and concerns leather bars, blow jobs and gender shifts which are fascinating and often very funny.

Lying in a hospital bed can be a “good form of shock therapy for a stuck writer,” you write in “Shattered.” Where did getting unstuck take your imagination?

A few days after my accident, while I was in intensive care in Rome, I had a very strong desire to record the story of what was happening to me. I hadn’t felt such a strong impulse to write for a long time. This new form of writing — the blog — suited me very well as a kind of diary of distress. And being able to publish it on Twitter and then on Substack gave me access to a huge, responsive audience. This helped me survive the horror of what I was experiencing.

What was the challenge of editing these writings into a book?

The original blogs were dictated to my partner, Isabella d’Amico, and my sons in very difficult circumstances. I was in bad physical and psychological condition in various hospitals. The following year Simon Prosser, my renowned editor, came to the house day after day, working with my son Carlo and me to create a tight and sharp version of the blogs, a more coherent narrative which could be read all the way through.

At one point, you bemoan the absence of explicit sexuality in great literature, wishing you could learn what some “favorite characters did in bed.” Which ones?

I think of the characters in Dostoyevsky, an author who fascinated me when I was young. His people are weird and often perverse. But you always feel with him that you are not hearing the whole story, as with many other authors, particularly homosexuals.

Your 2017 novel “The Nothing” is about a man in a wheelchair who requires steady care. Have you looked at it since your injury?

I never look at my books again unless I have to adapt them for another form, as I did recently with my first novel, “The Buddha of Suburbia,” which was staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company. As for “The Nothing,” I’m aware it reflects some of my present condition of physical helplessness and frustration.

What subjects do you wish more authors would write about?

With many of them I wish they would write less.

You describe yourself as “relieved not to be a young writer today.” What impact do you think changing literary values have had on your own reputation?

As a writing teacher I have become aware of the difficulties some of my students have to endure when it comes to writing across cultures or about subjects that the authors don’t inhabit entirely. I mean, white writers writing Black characters and vice versa and so on, and issues like so-called cultural appropriation. It is difficult enough as it is to write without these additional barriers, which would certainly have bothered me had I been trying to write “The Buddha of Suburbia” today.

You’re organizing a literary dinner party. Which three writers, dead or alive, do you invite?

Certainly my dear friend Zadie Smith, whose company I love — a woman full of gossip, filth and gorgeous, intelligent storytelling. I would also invite my pal Salman Rushdie, a brilliant raconteur and fabulous companion, full of jokes and fun. Franz Kafka would be a wonderful addition to the party: I believe he was a witty and wicked companion. Zadie, Salman and I could ask him what has gone wrong with the world?