In 2022, Hanif Kureishi broke his neck — it hasn't stopped him writing (2025)

British writer Hanif Kureishi had just opened a beer and sat down to watch football on TV when he suddenly blacked out.

It was 2022, and he was at the Rome apartment of his partner, Isabella d'Amico.

"I don't really know what happened next, but I think I stood up, and then I just fell flat on my face — bang — and I broke my neck," he tells Radio National's The Book Show.

Kureishi survived the accident but sustained a serious spinal injury, which resulted in tetraplegia.

When he woke up in hospital, he was unable to use his arms and legs.

"But I can still talk, so when I came out of my unconsciousness, I began to write," he says.

"I began to dictate these blogs to Isabella, who would sit next to me on the bed, typing this stuff furiously into her phone."

Published on social media, Kureishi's posts struck a chord with his followers.

"It was a very strange period, when I was so ill and so isolated and so lost in depression and self pity," he says. "But at the same time, this huge audience started to respond to what I was writing."

He wrote this way every day, and his three sons soon stepped in to help.

These daily dispatches form the basis of Kureishi's 2024 memoir, Shattered, a diarised account of his accident and ongoing recovery.

The ability to write — to document his experience and connect with his audience — has formed an integral part of his recovery.

"Luckily — despite the fact that I am injured — I can still write, I can do my job and, in fact, I'm probably doing it better now than I have done for a long time," he says.

It's the latest chapter in a life of writing that began with the Oscar-nominated screenplay for the 1985 film My Beautiful Laundrette, directed by Stephen Frears and starring Daniel Day-Lewis, about a gay Pakistani British boy growing up in London in the 1980s.

But the book that made Kureishi a literary star was his debut novel, The Buddha of Suburbia, published in 1990.

He joined The Book Show to discuss the story behind his much-loved novel.

An international bestseller

Based on Kureishi's life growing up in South London, The Buddha of Suburbia is a portrait of race, sex, class and music in London in the 70s, told from the perspective of 17-year-old Karim.

The novel became an international bestseller, winning the Whitbread Award for best first book. David Bowie — who went to the same school as Kureishi — composed the music for the 1993 BBC adaptation.

Three decades later, The Buddha of Suburbia — adapted for the stage by Kureishi and UK director Emma Rice in 2024 — is still attracting readers.

"People tell me that they read it, they enjoyed it, they laughed at it, and it meant something to them, and that really cheers me up," Kureishi says.

An 'explosion of English writing'

Kureishi wrote The Buddha of Suburbia at a moment when London's literary scene was flourishing.

He'd become friends with Salman Rushdie, who had won the Booker Prize in 1982 for Midnight's Children and was known for throwing great parties.

"He was this incredible figure in London at the time. He was so smart, a great raconteur. He'd read everything, seen all the movies [and] talked continuously," Kureishi recalls.

Kureishi found himself mixing with the likes of Martin Amis, Julian Barnes, Kazuo Ishiguro and Jeanette Winterson, who were part of a "huge explosion of English writing" making waves around the world.

The ambitious Kureishi aspired to join their ranks.

He says he wanted to break new ground by writing about race in the UK in a way that hadn't been done before.

"[I felt] if I don't do this, I'm going to be left behind, and I want to keep up with these people. I wanted to write something original, like Salman was doing."

The real Buddha of suburbia

The "Buddha" of the title is Karim's father, Haroon, styled after Kureishi's father, who emigrated to England in the 1940s to study law.

But instead of gaining a degree and returning home to Pakistan as was expected, Kureishi's father followed his own path, dropping out of university, marrying a white English woman and starting a family.

In the novel, Haroon — like Kureishi's father in real life — develops an interest in Eastern philosophy and soon becomes a popular guru-type figure in the neighbourhood.

Karim finds his father embarrassing but others are drawn to Haroon's brand of mysticism, tapping into an interest in Indian spirituality popularised by the Beatles, who made a famous trip to an Indian ashram in 1968.

At the same time, however, the UK was witnessing an ugly upswing in racist attacks on South Asian people.

"We were chased around the streets by skinheads. We were terrified of being beaten up and abused. You had to really be careful in South London at that time," Kureishi recalls.

Navigating this charged political atmosphere as a mixed-race kid was challenging.

"On the one hand, you were this kind of scum who was always being pursued by white nationalists," Kureishi says.

"On the other hand, you then became this font of wisdom for talking about anti-materialism and meditation."

Kureishi says his father, pleased to be the subject of a novel, would sit in the front row at readings and tell people he was the Buddha of suburbia.

"He was proud of me because he wanted to be a writer himself."

Life as a teenager in the 70s

While the novel is semi-autobiographical, it's not completely true to life.

"I took out the boring bits and left in the sex and drugs and rock and roll," Kureishi says.

"Karim has a really good time. He seduces people, he goes to orgies, he takes drugs, goes to rock and roll concerts, and then he becomes an actor. He has lots of adventures."

But the reality was more sedate, he says.

In the 70s, London was humming with creativity, but it all felt very distant from the dreary conformity of life in the suburbs.

"You lay in your room listening to the radio, knowing the people in London were having a great time while you were trying to do your homework."

In the tradition of other famous teenage narrators, such as The Catcher in the Rye's Holden Caulfield, Karim's adolescent perspective offers a critique of the adult society around him.

"When you're that age, everything adults do is completely f**king idiotic," Kureishi says.