Hanif Kureishi: Collected Essays

As I got drunker, Serena Nono’s Berkeley-born mother Nuria, whose father was the composer Schoenberg, told me stories of her childhood: of Thomas Mann making the children stay outside in the garden when her father went for supper, and the long wait for Brecht to visit — she was at school with his daughter Barbara.

Then, as though this had been staged for us, around 11.30 it started to snow. At midnight the fireworks in St Mark’s Square began, and we had a perfect view from the other side of the city, the rockets firing into the snow, which was heavy now. Couples in the house began to dance and embrace — I don’t mind hugging strangers if they’re Italian. It was like a scene from Fanny and Alexander .

By now drenched and with white heads, we shoved into the loaded vaporetto, all the bells of the city ringing out at once. At the hotel bar I saw a waiter I knew hurrying towards me carrying a tray on which was a two-decker chocolate cake and a huge glass of vodka. After turning fifty, pleasures are harder to come by than at an earlier age; but they are more appreciated. I like to believe I woke up in the morning, still holding that glass of vodka.

Hanif Kureishi was born and brought up in Kent. He read philosophy at King’s College London. In 1981 he won the George Devine Award for his plays Outskirts and Borderline , and in 1982 he was appointed Writer in Residence at the Royal Court Theatre. In 1984 he wrote My Beautiful Laundrette , which received an Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay. His second screenplay, Sammy and Rosie Get Laid (1987), was followed by London Kills Me (1991), which he also directed. The Buddha of Suburbia won the Whitbread Prize for Best First Novel in 1990 and was made into a four-part drama series by the BBC in 1993. His version of Brecht’s Mother Courage has been produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal National Theatre. His second novel, The Black Album , was published in 1995. With Jon Savage he edited The Faber Book of Pop (1995). His first collection of short stories, Love in a Blue Time , was published in 1997. His story ‘My Son the Fanatic’, from that collection, was adapted for film and released in 1998. Intimacy , his third novel, was published in 1998, and a film of the same title, based on the novel and other stories by the author, was released in 2001 and won the Golden Bear award at the Berlin Film Festival. His play Sleep With Me premiered at the Royal National Theatre in 1999. His second collection of stories, Midnight All Day , was published in 2000. Gabriel’s Gift , his fourth novel, was published in 2001. The Body and Seven Stories and Dreaming and Scheming , a collection of essays, were published in 2002. His screenplay The Mother was directed by Roger Michell and released in 2003. In 2004 he published his play When the Night Begins and a memoir, My Ear at His Heart . A second collection of essays, The Word and the Bomb , followed in 2005. His screenplay Venus was directed by Roger Michell in 2006. His latest novel, Something to Tell You was published to great critical acclaim in 2008. In 2009 the National Theatre staged an adaptation of his strikingly prescient and acclaimed novel, The Black Album . His Collected Stories were published in 2010. He has been awarded the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts des Lettres and a CBE for services to literature and his work has been translated into thirty-six languages. He was awarded the PEN/Pinter Prize in 2010.