HANIF KUREISHI CBE

Hanif Kureishi CBE (born December 5, 1954) is an English playwright, screenwriter and filmmaker, novelist and short story writer. The themes of his work have touched on topics of race, nationalism, immigration, and sexuality. In 2008, The Times named Kureishi in their list of “The 50 greatest British writers since 1945. A controversial novelist, playwright, and screenwriter, Hanif Kureishi is an outspoken commentator on multiculturalism in the United Kingdom. His fictional works explore in graphic terms the experiences of British Asians, and his work as a screenwriter and a novelist has been praised on both sides of the Atlantic, suggesting that the views of ethnic differences expressed in films such as My Beautiful Laundrette and Sammy and Rosie Get Laid, are recognisable beyond their London setting. Kureishi is known for his left-wing politics, sharp humour, and uncompromising views on literary production.

Praise for Hanif Kureishi

"His first play, Soaking the Heat, was performed at the Royal Court Theatre in London in 1976 and was followed in 1980 by The Mother Country, for which he won the Thames TV Playwright Award. In 1981 his play Outskirts won the George Devine Award and in 1982 he became Writer in Residence at the Royal Court Theatre. His screenplay for the film My Beautiful Laundrette, directed by Stephen Frears, was nominated for an Academy Award. 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. Kureishi’s first novel was the semi-autobiographical The Buddha of Suburbia, published in 1990, a comic coming-of-age novel and a satirical portrait of race relations in Britain during the 1970s. It won the Whitbread First Novel Award and was produced by the BBC in 1993 as a four-part television series. 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. Hanif Kureishi’s recent works are the play, Venus (2007), and the novel, Something to Tell You (2008). In 2009, his own stage adaptation of his novel The Black Album (2009), premiered at the National Theatre. He was awarded a CBE in 2007, in recognition of his services to literature and drama."