In between watching the glory that has been the Olympics (can’t say I expected so much Sepia-related content, but hey, awesome) and signing up to be one of the very few (10,000+ish) people to receive my very own VP text from Barack Obama, I came across this great piece in the NYT Magazine about Hanif Kureishi, his career, and his latest novel, Something to Tell You.
The novel is, in brief, about a member of the rebellious British South Asian generation, Jamal, that came of the age during the 80’s, and how he and his now successful peers have to overcome their past conflicts, loves, secrets, and continuing personal challenges as middle-aged parents and professionals. It actually sounds familiar in theme to My Revolutions by Hari Kunzru (a very nice book), except with a South Asian focus, and from the British reviews that have been published, it seems as though it will be a good read. I’ll be looking forward to reading it and the review world seems to see it as an improvement over his previous few novels, which have not been critically well-received. South Asian blog reviews of this novel have already been written, and it is to come out in America on August 19th.
The article highlighted more than his new novel – in particular, it noted how Kureishi’s emergence on the scene during the late 1980’s and his writings, including the screenplay of “My Beautiful Laundrette” and the novel Buddha of Suburbia gave a voice to a generation of South Asians in Britain that felt unrepresented and typecast in British society at 
the time:
The novel and a subsequent BBC mini-series made Kureishi a hero to a generation of British Asians and other nonwhites, a kind of postcolonial Philip Roth who brought to the mainstream themes that were previously relegated as “ethnic” and added lots of sex and humor. “What, above all, made Kureishi a talismanic figure for young Asians was his voice,” the critic Sukhdev Sandhu wrote in The London Review of Books in 2000. “We had previously been mocked for our deference and timidity. Kureishi’s language was a revelation. It was neither meek nor subservient. It wasn’t fake posh. Instead, it was playful and casually knowing.“
Kureishi’s most important role was to knock down the stereotypical image of South Asian immigrants as the hard-working, polite and dutiful members of society who would make nor do no trouble. For a group of immigrants that had historically faced a great deal of discrimination in the U.K., there was finally someone who articulated their true lives and struggles. Perhaps most importantly, the writings were not staid nor politically correct – they showed life as it really was for immigrants and their children:
Sandhu (the critic) recalls how his father — who left India for England in 1965 and worked in a Nestlé factory, and was taunted by local schoolchildren and punks as he walked home with sacks of chapati flour — beat him up after Sandhu insisted that the family watch “My Beautiful Laundrette” on TV. With nudity, gay sex, Pakistani businessmen cheating on their wives and a drug smuggler disguised as a mullah with heroin sewn into his fake beard, the film wasn’t just a wake-up call to white Britain; it also flew in the face of the traditional immigrant narrative. “Why are you showing us such filth?” Sandhu’s father asked him. “My father was right to be appalled,” Sandhu wrote. “The film celebrated precisely those things — irony, youth, family instability, sexual desire — that he most feared.” It taught his father, Sandhu added, “that he could not control the future. And control — over their wives, their children, their finances — was what Asian immigrants like him coveted.”
Kureishi could break through in an 80’s English literary scene that is described as a “BBC, plummy-voiced, West London, educated thing that just wasn’t getting the whole place,” because, as the article describes, he wrote to everybody: the poor and the rich, the supermarket shoppers and the Granta crowd. He gave a whole generation a voice, and to his credit, he has worked hard to stay relevant as times have changed. Regardless of the occasionally variable quality of his recent novels, he is perhaps the British cultural figure most in tune with the trend of rising extremism among young Muslim youth in the U.K. My favorite piece of his, “My Son the Fanatic,” did an exceptional job of showing the generational disconnect between British South Asian immigrants and their children, and in “The Word and the Bomb,” his recent essay collection, which I have not read, but has reviewed well (unfortunately only published in the U.K. – let me know if you can find any essays to link), he is said to describe his ideas about this generation of radicals tempered and thoughtful manner that is rare among culture writers, which would not be a surprise given this strong piece that Amardeep wrote about a few years ago.
The article also has a lengthy discussion of Kureishi’s use and examination of sexual themes, which I won’t describe at length here, because the important idea is not the content but rather the trait it shows: Kureishi is able to provoke discussions about multiculturalism and the clash and togetherness of backgrounds because he does not sterilize his stories or idealize his fictions. He writes about the South Asian world as he really sees it, even if that might be a world riven with conflicted, struggling and rebellious characters. These writings have the effect of initially shocking, but it is a shock that provokes necessary cross-cultural exchanges.
This presents an interesting question: is there a writer that expresses the trends, attitudes, problems, and experiences of our generation of young American desis as Kureishi did for an earlier generation of young British South Asians (and arguably as he does for this British generation as well) ? Mohsin Hamid is one the current “it” South Asian writers, though I wasn’t a huge fan of The Reluctant Fundamentalist (Moth Smoke, though, was excellent). His stories do cover a wide breadth of the South Asian diaspora, extending from Pakistan to Britain and the U.S.A., but he doesn’t really speak to the experience of desis growing up or born in the States. The name Jhumpa Lahiri, of course, comes to mind, and she is without a doubt a very good writer, but she writes about the challenges of a very specific immigrant story, the highly successful and well-educated family with personal challenges to overcome.
What writers do you think are the “voice of our (South Asian-American) generation”? Personally, I think there are many skilled authors, but this generation’s narrative is possibly too diverse and splintered for one writer to express. There are immigrants in poverty and those who face serious challenges, and there are immigrants who have reached the very pinnacle of our society in a short time. We are most likely blessed not to have the overriding narrative that was present due to the overt stereotyping and discrimination that an older British generation faced and the dangerous fundamentalism that is sadly rising in a current one. There are narratives of success and struggle in America, and many skilled writers to express them: our young and diverse American diaspora requires and has a young and diverse set of talented writers. Despite this, there is something to be said for shocking the system and bringing out tough truths about a multicultural society, and when Hanif Kureishi’s courageous works are read in homes and schools (as they were in my high school), they break down assumptions and encourage uncomfortable, but necessary, discussions.
i liked buddha of suburbia. it was also made into a really good tv series in the uk staring naveen andrews but i don’t like any of the other books that hanif has written. poor hanif seems very angst ridden which isn’t suprising. growing up in the uk in the 70s and 80s must have been hell because of all the racism. the people who came over to the uk were from a lower middle class or even poor background and didn’t have the sophistication to guide their kids through all the racism or to even see what was going on. a lot of these kids though have done very well and become doctors, pharmacists, etc. anyways, i’m happy for him that he fulfilled his ambitions to become a successful and acclaimed writer and maybe this angst helped for that.
Certainly looks like an interesting read. And the picture sort of gives away his ruggedness beneath the face.
In my university days in the late eighties/early nineties Kureishi was an inspiring voice. I remember the whispers and looks of horror that went around the South Asian community when My Beautiful Laundrette was first shown. I remember also thinking “good…this is what this community needs…a good solid kick in the a**”. It was a very dynamic period in literature, music, film – whether it was Talvin/Outcaste/Nation Records, Hanif Kureishi, Rushdie..there was a new resonance that could be felt within the South Asian community, particularly in the West. Ravi asks a great question: it seems that most of these voices are from a British Asian context. I don’t know enough about the voices that are particular to the North American experience or this current generation of South Asians to make an informed judgement…but I would welcome any recommendations..literature, music, visual arts..etc
Ravi, you young fool. You shouldn’t have given the Obama campaign your cell phone number. At the critical hour he will not text you with his VP’s name. No, instead he will text you “666” imprinting upon your person the mark of the beast.
Not yet 🙂 Maybe you? 🙂
Kureishi’s first work, My Beautiful Laundrette, was written when he was already about 30. I think that’s around the age when most people have enough perspective to write powerfully about their lives. So if you’re talking about the desi generation born in the 80s, it may just take a few more years.
Kaavya. But not through her writing. Through her life.
i love kureishi. i can still remember laughing out loud and falling in love with buddha of suburbia. my beautiful laundrette was equally moving. i must say i pick up every other book written by an indian author in hopes that i can connect with it. aside from kureishi and lahiri, i haven’t been moved by many. the disapora story is all too common now, and the writer has to be damn good to bring something new to the old narrative. not with the story itself, but with the method, the writing. i haven’t found any others i enjoy as much as those two…
Great post, Ravi. Hanif Kureishi is certainly an extraordinary writer. My Beautiful Launderette is one of my favorite movies/books.
5 · Dr AmNonymous said
Jhumpa Lahiri. More in her short stories than the novel but Namesake did a credible job of naming and describing the emotions that the immigrant generation experienced.
Funny. My Sandhu dad said the same thing when I tried to make him watch The Buddha of Suburbia. He didn’t beat me up, though, he just got up and left.
More than any other, that’s the book I wish I’d wrote. As consolation, I’m jacking the character Jamila for my novel because I’m hip hop (read “sampling,” read “appropriating”) like that.
Kureishi’s great strength is that his characters run the gamut from middle-aged angry Pakistani codgers (Jamila’s ornery dad) to idiosyncratic and open-minded recent immigrants (Changez) to left-wing activists (Jamila) to narcissistic rock stars (Charlie) to rich new age Orientalists (Eva) to the middle-aged English woman whose Pakistani-Brit husband abandons her (Karim’s mom) to the opportunistic middle-aged suburban guru (Haroon), to say nothing of the whole acting group Karim joins and to restrict this discussion to Buddha alone. Saying that Kureishi expresses the “trends, attitudes, problems, and experiences…of young British South Asians” is to deny the complexity of most of his characters.
Also, I think it’s noteworthy that Kureishi (like Karim) is a half-breed. His mother is “white” British. Halfies possess a particularly unique perspective which can tell us a lot about ourselves, and I am not aware of any mixed-race desis publishing fiction in the US so far.
The “American” book most comparable to Buddha (in my humble estimation) is Rolling the R’s by R. Zamora Linmark, a Filipino-Hawaiian author. Fixer Chao by Han Ong (another Filipino-American) comes close. Oh heck, might as well throw in Dogeaters by Jessica Hagedorn–those Pinoy queers are kicking multi-cultural butt all over the USA.
Here again, in the context of the U.K. especially, when we talk of South Asians (or as they say there, simply Asians) I think we have to differentiate between British Muslims vs British Asians who are non-Muslim…there are huge social, cultural, and attitudinal differences. The 2nd gen Gujarati Hindu kid in Leicester or the 2nd gen Sikh kid in Southall or Wolverhampton, or the Tamil kid in Wembley, while of course differing from each other in important ways, nonetheless are worlds apart from the Mirpuri Muslim 2nd gen Pakistani kid in Bradford or other similar cities (although obviously in some ways the Sikh kid would share certain linguistic and cultural similarities with the Mirpuri). Very different leadership, priorities, attitudes, behaviors, and religious orientation. Very different level of engagement with the British society and culture around them. And far less hostility to the West in the former than the latter.
13 · desi londoner said
They say immigrants steal the hubcaps Of the respected gentlemen They say it would be wine an’ roses If England were for Englishmen again</i>
lovely post, ravi!
Lovely post! Oh, to have more time to respond…
One more reason why multiculturism is well entrenched in London S&R v/s S&R GL. And I think London != UK. So, maybe we are waiting for the NY desi writer.
Really? Is that what life “really was” for immigrants at that time?
Yeah, Ravi. HAWT post!
ps crack up at Evil Abhi calling Ravi a “young fool.” You already getting your Uncle Blogger voice on, Abhi? Keep those Obama texts coming.
I’m bored of Kureishi now, he is yesterdays man. Yes, Buddha of Suburbia was refreshing, but re-reading it now it is incredible how flat the language is.
Ravi, I think you’re simplifying British Indian diaspora experience. As varied as you say the American diaspora is, so is the Anglo desi experience. No one writer can represent this, that is the fallacy that white journalists, critics and publishers come out with when they seek to anoint single writers as spokespeople for a group.
Yeah. Rachel Donadio says so. All immigrant life and experience is / was reducible to that. Amazing eh.
Seriously, Kureishi is such an old complacent fart. Stop hero worshipping him, people.
The biggest problem that so many authors face today is that they try to generically portray the South Asian immigrant experience, which, as has already been expressed, is pretty near impossible. It’s somewhat unproductive to expect an author to serve as the voice of a community (Jhumpa Lahiri has made this pretty clear in interviews). I think the expectation of accurate representation is a burden that is unnecessary, and is rarely placed on Caucasian authors. Many of the most successful diasporic novels are those that resist the notion of a mainstream diasporic experience, like The Inheritance of Loss or the recent novel Evening is the Whole Day (in my opinion). Just my two cents…
Rajiv, there really is pressure from publishers, journalists, publicists, to cast individual authors as ‘bringers of news’ and be representative of an entire group. These pressures come from the industry and readership and a media hungry for certain kinds of narratives, and certain kinds of ‘representative authors’. It is a dual dynamic — some sub-standard writers get published by this route, and the industry, and many readers, reflecting the tendencies and pressures of wider society, seek out this kind of status. It doesn’t just happen to desi writers, it happens to writers of every diaspora background.
The suitable response to this should be a big F**k You from author to suggestor.