Hanif Kureishi

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coming of age being an immigrant
A Unique Coming of Age Tale
Kureishi is great!
useless
A Curious London subculture

The Buddha of Suburbia
Hanif Kureishi
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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There's quite a bit of activity in Buddha of Suburbia. A bureaucrat becomes a suburban guru who marries a follower with a son who's a punk rocker named Charlie Hero. Consequently, the guru's son is propelled from his bland life into a series of erotic experiences in London. All the while, Hanif Kureishi keeps the tone lively with wry wit. On the description of suburban life: "We were proud of never learning anything except the names of footballers, the personnel of rock groups and the lyrics to 'I Am the Walrus.'" He also bends cultures, classes and genders while blasting the racism of British life in this 1990 Whitbread Prize winner.

Customer Reviews:

coming of age being an immigrant.......2006-04-21

Hanif Kureishi wrote the excellent "coming of age" novel set in London of the 1970s. The protagonist is a boy, Karim, from mixed family: his father is Indian, his mother English. He has a younger brother. They live in a London suburb of not the best reputation, the immigrant district, and feel it...

As Karim enters his teens, disturbing per se, his family collapses, his father, searching for his own path (quite good, actually, even nowadays: he becoomes a meditation guru), finds a lover, Eva, an eccentric woman with pretenses to be an artist. Meanwhile, his son falls in love with Eva's son, Charlie, and since then starts his struggle to recognize his sexuality. At the same time, he has to figure out what to do with his life... His best friend, an Indian girl with a sharp mind (a very interesting character), daughter of a shopkeeper, chooses to be a feminist, although initially she has no courage to oppose her father, traditionally bullying her into an arranged marriage,and marries an Indian from India, but quickly regains her position and goes back on the "modern" path. Karim is bright, observant, learns quickly (however he has no inclination for academic learning), ambitious (he wants to move up in society and not be regarded as an immigrant, who he, in fact is not) finally he figures out what he wants and becomes an actor.

This is a funny account, very much in the atmosphere of the hippie times, at the same time trying to grasp the 70s, tackling the immigrant problems in England from every possible angle, and describing the rebellious years of one youth. Maybe this is too much... The strory is a bit incoherent sometimes and has some boring moments,probably more interesting is the way it is written (an internal monologue), the humor and language, the sharp and witty character portraits, and the hints of autobiography (?). Although it is evidently not perfect, it only excited my curiosity as to other Kureishi's novels.

A Unique Coming of Age Tale.......2006-01-29

This book is vulgar, graphic, and crude. It's also witty, interesting, and entertaining. And that combination makes it unlike anything else I've read.

"I wanted to live always this intensely: mysticism, alcohol, sexual promise, clever people, and drugs." That's what the narrator, Karim Amir, states near the beginning of the story. As the book opens he's just a kid--a seventeen year old boy living in suburban London. His father is Indian and his mother in English, and that effects everything in his life, though the author never beats you over the head with his opinions on race relations.

The novel is set in the last seventies, and you follow Karim as he leaves the suburbs and gets caught up in the punk movement and socialist politics. His father wants him to be a doctor, but he realizes it's not for him and eventually pursues acting.

The story itself is not remarkable. It's a basic coming of age tale that follows the narrator through several years as he experiences sex, love, and first jobs. What makes this book fascinating is the writer's style. He mixes philosophy with references to pop culture. He's very blunt and possibly offensive when discussing sex or politics. The book is often humorous, sometimes even laugh-out-loud funny.

The whole things is very refreshing. Rather than reading a work of fiction it almost feels like reading letters from a friend. The prose is excellent, but you never feel like the author gets too poetic, so it feels realistic and you really believe that you're getting a story told by Karim without anything being sugar -coated.

I can't think of any authors who are exactly like Kureishi, but he does remind me of Vonnegut at times because the book is humorous, but there's also a lot of depth to it. You might also enjoy it if you like pop culture authors like Nick Hornby, but you're looking for a bit more substance.

Kureishi is great!.......2005-12-14

This novel, Hanif Kureishi's first, is a fascinating portrait of 1970s London. It focuses on a young Indian boy growing up with a father who styles himself as the eponymous Buddha of Suburbia. The father's character is great-- he has never been spiritual, but the yuppies of his suburb think that because he is Eastern, he must be Wise in All Things. The father begins to believe in his own greatness and leaves his wife and family in order to move in the circles of higher society. The entire cast of characters is a great bunch, often hilarious and very authentic.
The aspect of this story which I found most engaging was how well it told the tale of adolesence. Kureishi perfectly captures that process by which we move from being children to thinking we know everything to finally realizing we know nothing.
Kuresihi has since written several more novels, and I'm looking forward to hunting them down!

useless.......2005-10-01

what's that book about?
rebellion? i don't think to be a rebel is necessary to have sex with everyone you meet, both male and female.
is the intent of the author to shock you? he didn't shock me, he just disgusted me.
i didn't like this book at all, and if you are looking for a book with a meaning, you won't like this one.

A Curious London subculture.......2005-09-11

Kureishi, who is also responsible for My Beautiful Launderette, provides a window on Pakistanis in London a couple of decades ago. It is wildly funny, with over the top takes on multiculturalism, the punk music scene, and the coming of age of its protagonist Daniel, half Pakistani, half English, and not really either one.

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Intimacy: A Novel
Hanif Kureishi
Manufacturer: Scribner
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Hanif Kureishi's fourth novel made many reviewers uneasy on its first appearance in the U.K., because it cuts so painfully near to the bone. If a novelist's first duty is to tell the truth, then the author has done his duty with unflinching courage. Intimacy gives us the thoughts and memories of a middle-aged writer on the night before he walks out on his wife and two young sons for of a younger woman. A very modern man, without political convictions or religious beliefs, he vaguely hopes to find fulfillment in sexual love. No one is spared Kureishi's cold, penetrating gaze or lacerating pen. "She thinks she's feminist, but she's just bad-tempered," the unnamed narrator says of his abandoned wife. A male friend advises him, "Marriage is a battle, a terrible journey, a season in hell, and a reason for living."

At the heart of Intimacy is this terrible paradox: "You don't stop loving someone just because you hate them." Male readers will wince with recognition at the narrator's hatred of entrapment and domesticity, and his implacable urge towards freedom, escape, even loneliness. Female readers may find it a truly horrific revelation. Kureishi is only telling it like it is, in staccato sentences of pinpoint accuracy. By far the author's best yet: a brilliant, devastating work. --Christopher Hart, Amazon.co.uk

Book Description

<B>"Nothing is as fascinating as love, unfortunately."</B>

Jay, the narrator of Hanif Kureishi's third novel, tells his story on the night that he is preparing to leave his lover, Susan, and their two boys. His departure will not be impulsive: "I have contemplated this rupture from all sides," he says. But it will happen. He and Susan live comfortably in London. Each loves the children. Yet Jay, "lost in the middle of [his] life," craves and depends on passion in life, and it is no longer there.

Known for "very funny works about serious topics" (San Francisco Review of Books) and his uncanny ability to capture the mores of our time, Kureishi strips away all posturing and self-justification to expose the flaws of his own protagonist and the failure of intimacy. Searingly honest, he explores the fears and desires that drive a man to leave a woman. Rarely has such challenging and complex emotion fit into so compact a novel; rarely has an experience both common and uniquely devastating been so courageously portrayed.

The BLACK ALBUM
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The BLACK ALBUM
Hanif Kureishi
Manufacturer: Scribner Paper Fiction
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Kureishi, Hanif | ( K ) | Authors, A-Z | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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My Beautiful Laundrette
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My Beautiful Laundrette
Hanif Kureishi
Manufacturer: Faber & Faber
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Binding: Paperback

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Described by Stuart Hall as "one of the most riveting and important films produced by a black writer in recent years," My Beautiful Laundrette was a significant production for its director Stephen Frears and its writer Hanif Kureshi. Christine Geraghty considers it a crossover film: between television and cinema, realism and fantasy, and as an independent film targeting a popular audience. She deftly shows how it has remained an important and timely film in the 1990s and early 2000s, and her exploration of the film itself is an original and entertaining achievement.

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Love in a Blue Time
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This provocative collection of short stories charts the growth of a generation from the liberating irreverence of the late 1970s to the dilemmas of responsibility and fidelity of the 1990s. The stories resonate with Hanif Kureishi's dead-on observations of human passion and folly, his brilliant depiction of seedy locales and magical characters, and his original, wicked sense of humor.

Book Description

Together in one volume -- Hanif Kureishi's highly acclaimed and controversial novel, Intimacy, and, available for the first time, his latest collection of provocative short stories, Midnight All Day.

Jay, the narrator of Intimacy, tells his story on the night he is preparing to leave his lover, Susan, and their two boys. Stripping away all posturing and self-justification, Hanif Kureishi explores the fears and desires that drive a man to leave a woman. Midnight All Day is an astonishing, darkly comic collection of new stories, in which Kureishi confirms his reputation as one of our foremost chroniclers of the loveless, the lost and the dispossessed. The characters are familiar in the cultural landscape of the nineties: frustrated and intoxicated, melancholic and sensitive, yet capable of great cruelty, and if necessary, willing to break the constraints of an old life to make way for the new.

Download Description

Together in one volume -- Hanif Kureishi's highly acclaimed and controversial novel, Intimacy, and, available for the first time, his latest collection of provocative short stories, Midnight All Day. Jay, the narrator of Intimacy, tells his story on the night he is preparing to leave his lover, Susan, and their two boys. Stripping away all posturing and self-justification, Hanif Kureishi explores the fears and desires that drive a man to leave a woman. Midnight All Day is an astonishing, darkly comic collection of new stories, in which Kureishi confirms his reputation as one of our foremost chroniclers of the loveless, the lost and the dispossessed. The characters are familiar in the cultural landscape of the nineties: frustrated and intoxicated, melancholic and sensitive, yet capable of great cruelty, and if necessary, willing to break the constraints of an old life to make way for the new.

Average customer rating:

The Word and the Bomb
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Gabriel's Gift: A Novel
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ASIN: 0743217136
Release Date: 2002-09-24

Book Description

Gabriel's father, a washed-up rock musicisn, has been chucked out of the house. His mother works nights in a pub and sleeps days. Navigating his way through the shattered world of his parents' generation, Gabriel dreams of being an artist. He finds solace and guidance through a mysterious connection to his deceased twin brother, Archie, and his own knack for proudcing real objects simply by drawing them. A chance visit with mega-millionaire rock star Lester Jones, his father's former band mate, provides Gabriel with the means to heal the rift within his family. Kureishi portrays Gabriels' naive hope and artistic aspirations with the same insight and searing honesty that he brought to the Indian-Anglo experience in The Buddha of Suburbia and to infidelity in Intimacy. Gabriel's Gift is a humorous and tender meditation on failure, redemption, the nature of talent, the power of imagination--and a generation that never wanted to grow up, seen through the eyes of their children.

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Gabriel's father, a washed-up rock musician, has been chucked out of the house. His mother works nights in a pub and sleeps days. Navigating his way through the shattered world of his parents' generation, Gabriel dreams of being an artist. He finds solace and guidance through a mysterious connection to his deceased twin brother, Archie, and his own knack for producing real objects simply by drawing them. A chance visit with mega-millionaire rock star Lester Jones, his father's former band mate, provides Gabriel with the means to heal the rift within his family. Kureishi portrays Gabriel's naïve hope and artistic aspirations with the same insight and searing honesty that he brought to the Indian-Anglo experience in The Buddha of Suburbia and to infidelity in Intimacy. Gabriel's Gift is a humorous and tender meditation on failure, redemption, the nature of talent, the power of imagination -- and a generation that never wanted to grow up, seen through the eyes of their children.

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My Ear at His Heart
Hanif Kureishi
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The Buddha of Suburbia
Hanif Kureishi
Manufacturer: Viking
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000NQLOBA

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