Hanif Kureishi

Playwright, screenwriter, novelist and film-maker Hanif Kureishi was born in Bromley, Kent in 1954 and read philosophy at King's College, London. 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. The film was critically acclaimed for its sensitive depiction of a homosexual relationship between a gay skinhead and a young Asian man. He also wrote the screenplays for Sammy and Rosie Get Laid and London Kills Me (1991), which he also directed. 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. His play Sleep With Me (1999) was first performed at the National Theatre in London in 1999, and was followed by When the Night Begins (2004), produced at the Hampstead Theatre in 2004.

Kureishi's first novel was the semi-autobiographical The Buddha of Suburbia, published in 1990. Karim, the novel's young hero ('an Englishman born and bred - almost'), like Kureishi, has a Pakistani father and an English mother. The novel describes Karim's struggle for social and sexual identity, 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.

His second novel, The Black Album (1995), explores some of the issues facing the Muslim community living in Britain in the 1980s. Love in a Blue Time, his first collection of short stories, focuses on a series of characters working in the media.

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. His second short story collection, Midnight All Day (1999), continues to explore very personal issues about human relationships and sexual desire.

Gabriel's Gift (2001) tells the story of a 15-year-old schoolboy whose artistic skills enable him to survive the trauma of his parents' separation. Dreaming and Scheming: Reflections on Writing and Politics, a collection of Hanif Kureishi's non-fiction, including essays and diary fragments, as well as a new collection of short fiction, The Body and Other Stories, were both published in 2002. The Word and the Bomb (2005), is also a collection of non-fictional writings.

Hanif Kureishi's latest 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 became a CBE in 2007, in recognition of his services to literature and drama.

Bibliography

• Novels
  • 1990 The Buddha of Suburbia. London: Faber and Faber.
  • 1995 The Black Album. London: Faber and Faber.
  • 1998 Intimacy. London: Faber and Faber.
  • 2001 Gabriel's Gift. London: Faber and Faber.
  • 2003 The Body. London: Faber and Faber.
  • 2008 Something to Tell You. London: Faber and Faber.

• Story collections
  • 1997 Love in a Blue Time London: Faber and Faber.
  • 1999 Midnight All Day. London: Faber and Faber.

• Plays and screenplays
  • 1988 Sammy and Rosie Get Laid. London: Faber and Faber.
  • 1991 London Kills Me. London: Faber and Faber.
  • 1996 My Beautiful Laundrette and other writings. London: Faber and Faber.
  • 1997 My Son The Fanatic. London: Faber and Faber.
  • 1999 Hanif Kureishi Plays One. London: Faber and Faber.
  • 1999 Sleep With Me. London: Faber and Faber.
  • 2002 Collected Screenplays Volume I. London: Faber and Faber.
  • 2003 The "Mother". London: Faber and Faber.
  • 2007 Venus. London: Faber and Faber.
  • 2009 The Black Album (adapted from the novel). London: Faber and Faber.

• Nonfiction
  • 2002 Dreaming and Scheming: Reflections on Writing and Politics
  • 2004 My Ear at His Heart. London: Faber and Faber.
  • 2005 Word And The Bomb . London: Faber and Faber.

• As editor
  • 1995 The Faber Book of Pop. London: Faber and Faber.

• Critical works about Kureishi
  • Moore-Gilbert, Bart. Hanif Kureishi (Contemporary World Writers). Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001.
  • Ranasinha, Ruvani. Hanif Kureishi (Writers and Their Work). Devon: Northcote House Publishers Ltd, 2002.

Filmography

• Screenplays
  • 1985 My Beautiful Laundrette
  • 1987 Sammy and Rosie Get Laid
  • 1991 London Kills Me (and director)
  • 1993 The Buddha of Suburbia (television miniseries, based on the novel)
  • 1997 My Son the Fanatic (based on his own short story of the same title)
  • 1999 Mauvaise passe (aka The Escort, aka The Wrong Blonde) (with Michel Blanc)
  • 2003 The God of Small Tales (short) (with Akram Khan)
  • 2003 The Mother (adapted from the play)
  • 2006 Venus
  • 2007 Weddings and Beheadings (2007)

• Story basis only
  • 2001 Intimacy

• Producer
  • 2006 Souvenir

http://www.contemporarywriters.com/authors/?p=auth57

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanif_Kureishi