Hanif Kureishi+

A DISPUTE

I never wanted literature to come between friends.

MY EAR AT HIS HEART

From the archives

WHAT STORY ARE WE IN?

Searching for the shape of what happened

SHITTING SLEEPING WANKING EATING

NOW FREE: Age turns our former pleasures into torments.

SHITTING SLEEPING WANKING EATING

Age turns our former pleasures into torments.

SUMMER WRITING COMPETITION

Win £250, a signed book, a personal video from me, and publication to 40,000 readers

MY BLUE MOOD

If our moods are like a weather system, I have spent a lot of time trying to balance this private climate

NECESSARY ENEMIES

NOW FREE: You need the early, intrusive parent to build the machine; you need the rival to test it

ON DESCRIPTION, OR HOW NOT TO SMOTHER YOUR STORY

NOW FREE: There is a key moment in a writer's life when you stop writing in the style you consider novels should sound like, and start writing to entertain yourself.

THE LONG WALK

So, I’m upright again on this road, my legs fully extended and carrying me, one hard, small dragged step at a time.

ON DESCRIPTION, OR HOW NOT TO SMOTHER YOUR STORY

There is a key moment in a writer's life when you stop writing in the style you consider novels should sound like, and start writing to entertain yourself.

TWO KEITHS AND THE WRONG PIANO

Those first five notes knocked me out; it was like receiving five firm blows to the head

NECESSARY ENEMIES

You need the early, intrusive parent to build the machine; you need the rival to test it

KNOWING ME, KNOWING YOU

FREE TO READ: You like to believe you know everything about your children… but they begin to slip into another world.

MY BEAUTIFUL MEN

Next to this giant, I was rendered minuscule, impotent and humiliated.

HOW TO BE A NUISANCE

NOW FREE: Nothing happens, and you are given nothing, unless you fight and impose yourself on intransigent systems

KNOWING ME, KNOWING YOU

You like to believe you know everything about your children… but they begin to slip into another world.

WHY WE NEED RACIST JOKES

The whole point of humour now is to stop us taking our own virtue quite so seriously.

HOW TO BE A NUISANCE

Nothing happens, and you are given nothing, unless you fight and impose yourself on intransigent systems

WHO ARE YOU TO THEM?

Our biographies are co‑authored by other people’s stories.

EROTIC POLITICANS AND MULLAHS

Strangely, anti-British remarks made me feel patriotic, though I only felt patriotic when I was away from England.

AN UNCANNY ENCOUNTER

NOW FREE: He was like an invisible man, a kind of ghost, but at the same time, substantial and forthright in his opinions.

DEAD MAN'S SHOES

We live on through the distribution of what was formerly ours

ASK ME ANYTHING

Dear Readers,

THE HABIT OF ART

NOW FREE: You will be surprised by what shows up in your imagination, and how far it can take you from what you consider your 'normal' self.

REMEMBER YOU MUST DIE

NOW FREE: The Body Intervenes

REMEMBER THIS MOMENT, REMEMBER US

A short story, now FREE to read

IN FAVOUR OF FIGHTING

NOW FREE: To be is to differ

A THEFT: MY CON MAN

‘Silent, foul spiders spin their web in the base of our brain’ — CHARLES BAUDELAIRE, Les Fleurs du mal

MY DATE WITH AN ARMED ROBBER

A CONTRIBUTION: The ick is brutal. It isn’t fair. It doesn’t respond to logic or kindness or second chances

STOLEN LIVES: EVERYTHING IS MATERIAL

“When a writer is born into a family, it is finished.” Czeslaw Milosz.

ALL THE LUCK IN THE WORLD

NOW FREE: Your bad luck is your material, your symptom can be your escape

AN UNCANNY ENCOUNTER

He was like an invisible man, a kind of ghost, but at the same time, substantial and forthright in his opinions.

THE COLOUR OF HOME BY SAJID JAVID REVIEW

From one hostile environment to another

ALL THE LUCK IN THE WORLD

Your bad luck is your material, your symptom can be your escape

SHOULD I KILL MYSELF?

NOW FREE: A modicum of pleasure, a moment of relief, an entertaining conversation, and you are back in the world

FIGHTING GHOSTS, IN MY DREAMS

If I could use my hands, I would pinch myself.