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| Interview with Hanif Kureishi by Melanie Ashby IT'S A men’s issue, I explain. It would be good to talk about masculinity, to look at how gender affects writing. But Hanif Kureishi doesn’t really want to talk about that. With his arms across his chest he states that being a writer, ‘offering a portion of yourself in the hope of some connection’, is exactly the same whether you’re a man or a woman. Yet, despite a rather guarded manner, he’s agreed to be the only man to be interviewed by Mslexia, a potentially brave move considering the less than warm reception from women readers to his book Intimacy [‘The feminists will be horrified when they see the Kureishi name’]. But talk about gender we shall, even, as becomes clear, it isn’t something he’s used to reflecting on. Like tutor and pupil, Kureishi sits on one side of a desk and I on the other, in a book-lined, leather-chaired office at his agent’s. We are in modish West London where the pavements are practically lined with gold, the area stinks of success and Kureishi fits in rather well. From acclaim at the age of 31 for his screenplay My Beautiful Laundrette, through Whitbread-winning first novel The Buddha of Suburbia and the controversial Intimacy to his latest novel Gabriel’s Gift, the boy from the Bromley suburbs has done rather well for himself. Now in comfortable middle-age (he’s 46), he lives in Shepherd’s Bush, a convenient cab ride from his agent, with his long-term partner, their three-year-old son, and on-and-off with ‘the twins’, eight-year-old boys from a previous relationship. Straight off, Kureishi is more than happy to talk about being a father. He sees fatherhood as a second job, perhaps as his primary occupation. He’s certainly as obsessed about his sons as he is writing. Both roles have melded in recent years following a decision to open up his writing space. ‘I enjoy my own solitude too much,’ he muses. ‘It’s the fantasy of self-sufficiency. Writers are often people who’ve got addicted to solitude… For the whole interview, read Issue 13 » Subscribe! Go to » Hanif Kuresishi's Method |
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For more on HANIF KUREISHI , go to www.hanifkureishi.com
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