In many of the works of Hanif Kureishi the past represents a complex source-text of which the author himself (in his youth) made first and second-hand experiences. Almost all of his novels and screenplays present a very complex and fascinating relationship between father and son, where the latter usually represents a literary version of Kureishi. However reading and representing his story – that of a mixed heritage Londoner from the suburbs of the capital – Kureishi also reads and writes his father’s experiences, that of a man translated from Pakistan to Britain in the early Fifties. In Kureishi’s work, the dialogue between first and second generation immigrants becomes a dialogue between different but somehow complementary perspectives, tensions and passions. Indeed Kureishi’s story is truly a story of passion and desire and that in two different ways. Kureishi’s successful career represents and indirect fulfilment of his father disappointed desire to become a writer (something which emerges in his last narrative My Ear at His Heart); on the other hand the whole of his work is an ongoing celebration of desire as force through which it is possible to escape divisive politics. The past as a zone of racial prejudice, of false tolerance and imposed conformity to the native model is translated into a dynamic present, a necessary and inescapable space of hybridity and intermixture, in which the memory of the presence of an other within the self moves and motivates all action and passion.

“My Ear at his Heart. Memory and Desire in Hanif Kureishi”

MARTINO, PIERPAOLO
2006-01-01

Abstract

In many of the works of Hanif Kureishi the past represents a complex source-text of which the author himself (in his youth) made first and second-hand experiences. Almost all of his novels and screenplays present a very complex and fascinating relationship between father and son, where the latter usually represents a literary version of Kureishi. However reading and representing his story – that of a mixed heritage Londoner from the suburbs of the capital – Kureishi also reads and writes his father’s experiences, that of a man translated from Pakistan to Britain in the early Fifties. In Kureishi’s work, the dialogue between first and second generation immigrants becomes a dialogue between different but somehow complementary perspectives, tensions and passions. Indeed Kureishi’s story is truly a story of passion and desire and that in two different ways. Kureishi’s successful career represents and indirect fulfilment of his father disappointed desire to become a writer (something which emerges in his last narrative My Ear at His Heart); on the other hand the whole of his work is an ongoing celebration of desire as force through which it is possible to escape divisive politics. The past as a zone of racial prejudice, of false tolerance and imposed conformity to the native model is translated into a dynamic present, a necessary and inescapable space of hybridity and intermixture, in which the memory of the presence of an other within the self moves and motivates all action and passion.
2006
978-88-8443-175-2
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11586/55194
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