Kureishi Interview

The Guardian has an interview with Hanif Kureishi, the acclaimed author, playwright and screenwriter (My Beautiful Laundrette, My Son the Fanatic, The Buddha of Suburbia, etc.) His latest book is about a woman in her seventies, sex life included. The interview tackles the inevitable subjects of race (which I believe Maud already excerpted) and gender, as well as his writing routine.

He gets up early and writes every day. He writes loads, he says. “That’s all I do all day. I’m always writing. I’m an obsessive. It’s not because I’m a disciplined person. It’s because I’m crazy about it.” His most depressed period, he says, was when he had just left university and was waiting to see if any real writing talent might emerge; if it hadn’t, he says, he would have had to become an academic. But it did, and he started writing plays for the Royal Court theatre. One of the characters in The Mother is a failed writer, a woman whose ambition is unmatched by ability and who Kureishi depicts, in this pathetic state, with a little too much relish.

You can also visit Kureishi’s website.