IN THEIR WORDS
By Hanif Kureishi
IN 1987 Hanif Kureishi was nominated for an Oscar for the screenplay to My Beautiful Laundrette, a comedy drama about the love affair between a white hooligan and a Pakistani boy in Thatcherite London. Kureishi was in his early 30s, living in social housing, and this first taste of international success was thrilling. Thirty years on, he says, the excitement of new publications, translations and prizes has rather worn of. But writing is as sweet as ever. “I love sitting there, in my house in Hammersmith [London], with my pen,” he says. He enjoys coming down in the morning, not sure whether he’ll be working on a novel, a screenplay or a television script, looking forward to “inhabiting” the characters he creates.