Literary wrangler Sukhdev Sandhu, he of the wondrous New York magazine piece on the desified Spiderman, interviews Hanif Kureishi about his new memoir about his father. In My Ear at His Heart, Kureishi writes of his father’s assimilationism, marrying an Englishwoman and refusing to teach his kids Urdu:

“My dad was always very Anglicised. He felt himself to be a Chekhovian figure, wandering aimlessly and foolishly around a country where other people were very committed to religion or community. He saw England as a new start. He wanted us to be English; he didn’t want any of that in-between stuff. So I didn’t have access to India or Pakistan. If his brothers came round he’d speak Urdu, but he didn’t want my sister or me to learn it. I spent my childhood sitting around listening to people speaking in a language I didn’t understand.”

Hanif’s ascension as an iconic ‘in-betweener’ is a form of rebellion, a deep irony. It’s like the Bradford Muslims who turn fundamentalist because their parents aren’t, or the Iranians who are stridently pro-USA because their government isn’t. And Kureishi’s inability to understand Urdu left him doubly isolated, both from the outside world as a ‘Paki’ and from the Muslim community.

This piece reminds me of how much richer the diasporic milieu is in the UK than in the U.S., we’re such hicks in comparison. On Kureishi’s mentoring of other British Asians, including the writer of Bombay Dreams:

Kureishi himself is a father figure to a whole generation of Asian artists who were inspired by the fearlessness of his writing. A young Meera Syal, author of Anita and Me, starred in My Beautiful Laundrette. Ayub Khan-Din, author of the play and hit film East Is East, was one of the joint leads in Sammy and Rosie Get Laid. The band Cornershop, whose “Brimful of Asha” is one of the best records ever to top the pop charts, included a song called “Hanif Kureishi Scene” on the B-side of their first single.

On Muslim fundamentalism breeding in the UK. White Teeth also savagely parodies fundie preachers:

Kureishi became very interested in the growing radicalism of young Muslims in London and in Bradford who renounced all the freedoms that he had championed and instead veered towards social conservatism. Now, The Black Album (1995) and My Son the Fanatic (1997) seem prescient…

On how white writers rarely write about race:

“The major white writers of our time never write about race,” he observes. “You wouldn’t think England had changed in 50 years if you read a book by Julian Barnes or Martin Amis or Jeanette Winterson. They don’t — can’t — engage with the subject of race…”

On how far British Asians have come:

“I remember receiving some prize and this guy told me, ‘I think you’re going to be a very successful writer, but why don’t you stop writing about Pakistanis and Asian people?’ I found this a terrible blow. ”

Gurinder Chadha says ‘no more arranged marriage films!,’ but violated her own rule:

Gurinder Chadha, director of Bend It Like Beckham, says: “When I saw My Beautiful Laundrette I was, like, ‘Wow!’ Hanif took Asians into another space. He was bringing us up to speed. I remember thinking that we’ll never go back to having arranged-marriage stories on the screen. Ha! We invariably do.

On how Kureishi doesn’t appreciate his disciple’s earnest musical:

“it seems to me to be very important that we’re critical of our communities. Things aren’t all Bombay Dreams, and all that vulgarity. The worst thing to me about multiculturalism is that we’re always celebrating each other’s religions and communities. That seems to me to be very banal and patronising.”

Kureishi’s new book is a memoir of his father, an unsuccessful writer:

Kureishi’s new book, My Ear at His Heart, is a memoir based on his father’s unpublished novel An Indian Adolescence, which he wrote before his death in 1991… “It’s not a sexy novel like Brick Lane, or The Buddha of Suburbia, or White Teeth. Asians are meant to be writing really sexy novels now. And you write this rather obscure book about your old man stumbling around Bromley in 1950.”

On father-son literary rivalry:

He spent almost all his spare time writing novels, stories and plays, none of which was published. Yet his brother Omar went on to become a bestselling author and journalist in Pakistan, and his son picked up an Oscar nomination for his very first screenplay. In My Ear at His Heart, we hear of his resentment…