Ten years after the publication of The Buddha of Suburbia, Kureishi followed once again the journey into discovery of a restless and confused teenager in GabrielвЂ™s Gift (2001) and explored the father-son relationship, a topic which is also scrutinised in his memoir My Ear at His Heart. The latter addresses the issue of Muslim fundamentalism, which the writer also approached in his second novel, The Black Album (1995), written in the context of the fatwa issued against Salman Rushdie after the publication of The Satanic Verses (1988). Kureishi wrote several other screenplays over the years, amongst which Sammy and Rosie Get Laid (1988), London Kills Me (1991), Le Week-End (2013) and My Son the Fanatic (1997). Many people discovered Kureishi through his screenplay for the film directed by Stephen Frears and starring Daniel Day-Lewis, My Beautiful Launderette (1985), the story of the gay relationship between a young Pakistani entrepreneur and his white working-class neo-Nazi lover. His early plays explore issues of marginality and poverty, immigration and racism, gender differences and tensions between the community and the individual, which would later surface again in his novels. In the early seventies, he attended the same Bromley school Davie Bowie and Billy Idol attended and was fascinated by the pop and rock music of the time.ДЄfter reading philosophy at KingвЂ™s College in London, he began his writing career as a playwright in 1979. Hanif Kureishi was born in 1954 in a South London suburb and experienced a typical English childhood though his mixed racial background often subjected him to various forms of racism. Over more than forty years, KureishiвЂ™s work as a playwright, screenplay writer, novelist, short story writer and essayist has been remarkable for its in-depth exploration of both personal and political issues: his preoccupation with questions of social class, racism, national identity and religious fundamentalism is complemented by a focus on the nature of love, desire and sexuality, the complexities of family relationships, the construction of gender roles and new forms of masculinity.

Naipaul or Andrea Levy, as he was born in England to a British mother and a Pakistani father and displays no feeling of nostalgia for his fatherвЂ™s homeland even if he shares with some immigrant writers a sense of rootlessness and a concern for questions related to ethnicity. Although KureishiвЂ™s work is often included in analyses of Black British literature or postcolonial literature, his stance differs from that of Salman Rushdie, V.S. In 1993, three years after the publication of his debut novel The Buddha of Suburbia, Hanif Kureishi was selected by Granta as one of the twenty вЂњBest of Young British NovelistsвЂќ in a list which included Alan Hollinghurst, Kazuo Ishiguro, Ben Okri, Caryl Phillips, Will Self and Jeanette Winterson. Vanessa Guignery draws a portrait of the author of The Buddha of Suburbia, My Beautiful Launderette and My Son the Fanatic. I picked it up just as she opened the door and the dog came bounding out to greet me, causing me to drop my bag on the floor вЂ¦ and the house keys to fall out of my bag.Hanif Kureishi is a subversive writer in search of identity beyond the borders of race, gender and class. And quite possibly, police sirens.ДЄs my daughter skipped down the stairs to let me in, I walked back around to the garage door to collect my handbag. I was pretty sure I heard the theme from вЂњMission ImpossibleвЂќ playing somewhere in the background. I wiped my brow and looked around nervously. Moments later, her feet disappeared and she popped up head first at the window. I held the ladder and spotted her while she zoomed up the ladder and wriggled in the gap in the window. Then my daughter pushed up her sleeves, turned to me, and said, вЂњIвЂ™m going in!вЂќ We carried the ladder to the back of the house and set it up right under her window. More fortunately, my daughter loves rock climbing and roller coasters and that kind of thing, so she had no problem with the task.

Did I mention I am deathly afraid of heights?ДЇortunately, the window was open wide enough to allow a teenage girl to crawl through which saved me from having to admit that I couldnвЂ™t climb the ladder because I am deathly afraid of heights (did I mention that?). Yes, THATвЂ™S how stupid I am.ДЄfter circling the house repeatedly, we determined that the only window that was open and break-in-able, was in my daughterвЂ™s bedroom. Why would I get arrested? Because naturally I had left my wallet with all my identification in the house, too. The good news was, I was fairly certain I had not set the alarm when I ran out to pick up my daughter from school so I was at least assured that I would not get arrested for breaking into my own house.

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