Hanif Kureishi began his new memoir just days after a fall left him paralyzed. He describes being completely dependent on others — and the sense of purpose he's gained from writing. The memoir is called Shattered.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Chapter 1: Who is Hanif Kureishi and what is his new memoir about?
This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross. I first became aware of Hanef Qureshi when the 1985 film My Beautiful Laundrette was released. He was nominated for an Oscar for his screenplay about a side of contemporary England that had rarely been explored on screen, Pakistani immigrants and their children. The film was a lively romantic comedy about gay love, family, racism, and punk rock.
It was directed by Stephen Frears and co-starred Daniel Day-Lewis as a young man in a relationship with the son of a Pakistani immigrant. Qureshi has since written other screenplays and novels, including The Buddha of Suburbia. His new memoir, called Shattered... begins in 2020 after a fall that injured his spinal cord, leaving him unable to move his arms or legs.
He describes being unrecognizable to himself, disconnected from his body, totally dependent on others, feeling helpless and humiliated, dealing with rage, envying other people who could do even basic things like scratch and itch. While spending too much time on his back staring at the ceiling, he reflected on earlier periods of his life. He shares those reflections in his book.
He spent a year in hospitals before he was able to return home with round-the-clock caregivers. He started writing the memoir just days after the accident by dictating to one of his sons. The book's narrative is occasionally interrupted by asides like, excuse me for a moment, I must have an enema now.
Qureshi is the son of a British mother and a father who emigrated from Pakistan in the late 1940s. Hanif Qureshi, welcome back to Fresh Air. We first spoke in 1990 on Fresh Air, and you've been on two times since then, so welcome back. How are you now? How much movement do you have?
I'm thrashing my arm about a bit now as I speak to you, but I can't use my fingers. I can't grip. I couldn't pick up a pen or anything like that. I can move my shoulder. I can move my legs a bit. Obviously, I'm in a wheelchair. I can't stand up. But I can't actually use my hands. So I'm around the clock dependent, as you put it earlier. But I'm stronger than I was. And I have physio every day.
And so I'm stretched out. I move a bit. But I think this is pretty much where I'm going to remain from now on.
And physio is physical therapy.
Yeah, I have the physio every day. Someone comes to the house and I stand up in a standing machine and they stretch me out, manipulate my fingers and my feet and so on so I don't deteriorate. That's the main thing. I don't want to get worse. I'm doing a lot of stuff at the moment. This morning I was writing here at my kitchen table with my son Carlo doing my blog.
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Chapter 2: How did Hanif Kureishi adapt to life after his accident?
So I think there are moments, quite rightly, where you deserve to feel angry, but it's tough on the people around you.
Isabella asked you that if the tables were turned and she was lying in bed, unable to move, would you do for her as much as she'd been doing for you? And you write that you weren't sure. You weren't sure if you would. What made you doubt that?
I guess because I'd never done anything like that before. I look after Isabella and she looks after me. We're equals. But the idea that I would then devote my life to her being disabled and being in a need, I can't answer that. But I think I would now. I'd do it for anybody now because I know so much about suffering and disablement, which I didn't know before.
So the answer would be, yes, I would do that. But I don't know whether I would have done it when I was healthy. But as I say, it's not a question one can answer.
So in recalibrating your relationship, what are some of the changes that you made so that even though you were no longer physically equals and you were dependent and she was a caregiver, what were you able to change to restore things or to keep on track things that were special between you?
Unlike most of the people that I was in hospital with, They can't go back to work. None of them have gone back to work. You know, if you're a truck driver or you're a street cleaner or you're a postman or whatever, none of those men or women can go back to work. So they go back home and they lie in bed and they watch TV. My job, thankfully, is a talking and writing job. And I work outside.
Every day, as I described to you earlier. And that's part of an important part of our relationship. She works and I work and I have the dignity of my work. I've written Shattered. I'm writing other stuff, as I've said. And I feel that, you know, it's my part of the relationship, that I earn money, that I support us. I'm a father to my son.
So I'm still doing stuff in the world and I have some dignity there. I haven't been robbed of my ability to function, to be creative. In fact, I'm writing more now, even though I'm disabled, than I did before, and I'm very happy to work. And I go to work in the morning with great energy and belief, and that's important in our relationship for both of us.
We both feel that we are dignified, creative people doing stuff that matters in the world.
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