Book description
Religion is for the benefit of the masses, not for brain-box types
like you. Those simpletons require strict rules for living, otherwise
they would still think the earth sits on three fishes. But you
mind-wallahs must know it's a lot of balls. An Asian kid from Kent
goes to college in London and teams up with a sympathetic group of
anti-racists. But it's 1989, the year of the fatwa, and as Shahid
begins a hedonistic affair with his lecturer, his radical Muslim
friends want to steer him away from the decadence of the West. We're
not blasted Christians. We don't turn the other buttock. We will fight
for our people who are being tortured anywhere - in Palestine,
Afghanistan, Kashmir, East End! Hanif Kureishi's witty stage
adaptation of his strikingly prescient and acclaimed novel, The Black
Album, humorously considers how the events of 1989 have shaped today's
world, where fundamentalism battles liberalism. A co-production with
Tara Arts, The Black Album premiered at the National Theatre, London,
in July 2009.
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 premièred 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 novel Something to Tell You
was published in 2008. In July 2009 his adaptation of his novel, The
Black Album, opened at the National Theatre, prior to a nation-wide
tour. In 2010 his Collected Stories were published. He has been awarded
the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
