The black album

by Hanif Kureishi, Alberto Pezzotta (Translator)

Shahid, un giovane pakistano stabilitosi da molto tempo in Inghilterra, si trasferisce dal Kent a Londra per ragioni di studio. Dopo l'incontro con Deedee Osgood, l'eccentrica professoressa che nelle sue lezioni mescola disinvoltamente le canzoni di Prince coi saggi di Lacan, il mondo di Shahid viene sconvolto. Un'ulteriore scossa gli viene dall'arrivo del fratello Chili, un gangster drogato in giacca di Armani, che cerca di sottrarsi alla vendetta della mala. E a peggiorare la situazione ci si mettono anche i nuovi amici fondamentalisti islamici che introducono Shahid in un mondo di cui ignora tutto, o quasi. L'azione si svolge a Londra nel 1989, anno della caduta del muro di Berlino e della pubblicazione di "Versi satanici" di Rushdie.

Genres: Fiction, British Literature, Novels, Literature, 20th Century, Contemporary, Literary Fiction

266 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Hanif Kureishi is the author of novels (including The Buddha of Suburbia, The Black Album and Intimacy), story collections (Love in a Blue Time, Midnight All Day, The Body), plays (including Outskirts, Borderline and Sleep With Me), and screenplays (including My Beautiful Laundrette, My Son the Fanatic and Venus). Among his other publications are the collection of essays Dreaming and Scheming, The Word and the Bomb and the memoir My Ear at His Heart.

Kureishi was born in London to a Pakistani father and an English mother. His father, Rafiushan, was from a wealthy Madras family, most of whose members moved to Pakistan after the Partition of India in 1947. He came to Britain to study law but soon abandoned his studies. After meeting and marrying Kureishi’s mother Audrey, Rafiushan settled in Bromley, where Kureishi was born, and worked at the Pakistan Embassy.

Kureishi attended Bromley Technical High School where David Bowie had also been a pupil and after taking his A levels at a local sixth form college, he spent a year studying philosophy at Lancaster University before dropping out. Later he attended King’s College London and took a degree in philosophy. In 1985 he wrote My Beautiful Laundrette, a screenplay about a gay Pakistani-British boy growing up in 1980’s London for a film directed by Stephen Frears. It won the New York Film Critics Best Screenplay Award and an Academy Award nomination for Best Screenplay.

His book The Buddha of Suburbia (1990) won the Whitbread Award for the best first novel, and was also made into a BBC television series with a soundtrack by David Bowie. The next year, 1991, saw the release of the feature film entitled London Kills Me; a film written and directed Kureishi.

His novel Intimacy (1998) revolved around the story of a man leaving his wife and two young sons after feeling physically and emotionally rejected by his wife. This created certain controversy as Kureishi himself had recently left his wife and two young sons. It is assumed to be at least semi-autobiographical. In 2000/2001 the novel was loosely adapted to a movie Intimacy by Patrice Chéreau, which won two Bears at the Berlin Film Festival: a Golden Bear for Best Film, and a Silver Bear for Best Actress (Kerry Fox). It was controversial for its unreserved sex scenes. The book was translated into Persian by Niki Karimi in 2005.

He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2008 New Year Honours.

Kureishi is married and has a pair of twins and a younger son.

Reviews

[Felice Laverne · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Chili’s basic understanding was that people were weak and lazy. He didn’t think they were stupid; he wasn’t going to make that mistake. He saw, though, that people resisted change, even if it would improve their lives; they were afraid, complacent, lacking courage. This gave the advantage to someone with initiative and will.”

The Black Album, originally published in ‘95 then re-published by Scribner in 1996, is the tale of Shahid, a Pakistani Muslim young man living in a contemporary British society. As he grapples with the line between fundamentalism and liberalism—his love of sex, drugs and rock-and-roll versus his traditional familial and community expectations—he finds himself coming of age and into his own in London after the death of his father, exploring and often crossing the line between the accepted and the taboo, his insight into the world around him growing ever more poignant as he does. Here you find two combating worlds that do not, by definition, co-exist well: the ideology of the liberal neo-thinker who is entranced by Prince, Baldwin and the idea of the Black Panther movement versus the radical fundamentalists, portrayed through Shahid’s friend, Riaz, and his clique. And, in the middle is a cast of characters who are fully realized, led by an older brother who has followed drugs down their rabbit hole. The sequence of events and clash of cultures eventually lead to violence, fittingly in a controversy over The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie.

Hanif Kureishi has never been an author to write to placate the masses, and he didn’t attempt so here either. This novel didn’t please everyone—in fact, it might have offended some—but if you’re looking for a single word to describe this pick, I’ve got one for you: soul. Pure soul on a page. Keep in mind that this novel was Kureishi's response to the fatwah intent on killing Salman Rushdie for writing The Satanic Verses that was issued by Islamic fundamentalists. The grittiness and reality in this work left me breathless, and it was refreshing to find a work that so brilliantly mixed comedy, intellect and satire.

I first read this pick while doing my M.A. in London. I remember chatting about it with my diss. advisor, Bobby Nayyar, over some beverage in some mostly-empty coffee nook, then the conversation continuing as we strolled to the tube in typical London drizzly weather. The Black Album was insightful and dared to go inside of the crannies that make us uncomfortable, into the room where drugs are being done, into the bed of the professor sleeping with her student. This novel was LOUD, as it had to be to compete with all of the background noise of London and to find its place within it, both for the characters internally and for the novel itself.

Here you’ll find insightful little nuggets like the one above, and you’ll follow Shahid in his modern-day journey, in a journey that both Baby Boomers and Millennials alike can relate to, because this world described within the pages of The Black Album has always existed: this world of self-exploration, of rebellion, drugs, sex, of fundamentalists versus "new-age" thinkers, though it isn’t often written about—that is, not so often as runaway chick lit bestsellers and formulaic thrillers. There was no formula to this one, only the free hand of a confident author not afraid to cross a few lines.

The industry needs more words—more books—from those who truly have something to say, and this one, this writer, does. As an agent, I fought for authors who had a true voice, passion, soul. But often they were turned down as too this or too that, while other writers, some of whom I have and likely will in the future review here, continued being offered contracts to write about…nothing. But reads like this let me know that some truly talented voices do still get through “the gatekeepers,” and for that we should all be both encouraged and grateful. More please! 5 stars all day. *****

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[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

'Black Album' (named after the Prince album of the same name) is Hanif Kureishi's 1995 novel set in late 1980's UK which tells the story of Shahid and his time in London as a young British Asian Muslim man having recently moved there from the provinces to study at college.

In the hands of many other less skilled, less imaginative authors, 'Black Album' could very easily have amounted to little more than a cliched, stereotypical and hackneyed tale of 'young British Muslim - pulled asunder across the cultural divide between white liberalism (progressive white British college lecturer) and Muslim fundamentalism (Asian peers dedicated to direct political action)'.

Whilst it is true that the central theme of Kureishi's book is what might be termed the spiritual battleground for the heart and soul of Shahid - 'Black Album' is much more than that, it is too easy and perhaps quite lazy to say that 'Black Album' is moreover about the battle for the spiritual soul of a nation, in some respects that's also true. What Kureishi seems to be doing here is satirising both sides of the divide - exposing the stereotypes, the labelling, the pigeonholing and shining a light on the respective nonsense.

The 'Black Album' story is very much the story of divides - traditional v modern, religion v rationality, liberalism v fundamentalism, collectivism v individualism, self denial v hedonism, fatwah v intellectual freedom and the list goes on...

This is a great and prescient story, wittily and insightfully told in which Kureishi successfully o'erleaps and sidesteps cliche and predictability.'Black Album' is a contemporary (for 1995) thriller which is well drawn, exciting, funny, exasperating but ultimately satisfying - the denouement is realistically the rightful and only real conclusion to a troubled tale of a troubled world and a flawed cast of characters - ultimately ambiguous but with a definite glimmer of hope and humanity.

[Tom Mooney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such an excellent novel that depicts a time and place that no longer really exists. This is a London that has since been through so many facelifts, and Kureishi captures it deliciously. This is the pre-9/11, pre-mobile phones, pre-New Labour, pre-Iraq War Britain that feels like a hundred years ago but was really barely three decade. A cracking time piece stuffed with brilliant characters, The Black Album would make a brilliant companion to Zadie Smith's White Teeth. Loved it.

[Drgibson63 · Rating 5 out of 5]

(Note, I wrote the review that follows for a magazine just after Sept. 11, 2001. The subsequent War on Terror has made The Black Album a very prescient book, a sort of embryonic look at such extremism.)

Hanif Kureishi excels in exposing the sour taste of tired overworked, spoiled radicalism. In Buddha of Suburbia, he conveyed the decay of the 60s idealism leading to the advent of Thatcherism. But he's no neo-conservative. Kureishi takes on political correctness with imagination as a weapon, rather than wanting to restrain thought.

The Black Album is Kureishi's response to the fatwah more than a decade ago issued by Islamic fundamentalists intent on killing Salmon Rushdie for writing The Satanic Verses. As well as the novel exposes the foolishness of being "devoid of doubt," post Sept. 11 it can also be read as a precursor to the terrorism that killed more than 3,000. Kureishi's fanatical students who inhabit a third-rate London university, being deceived by a quiet madman, show a potential for violence as the novel concludes.

The protaganist is Shahid, a young student pulled in two opposing radical ideologies. He arrives at the college because he idolizes professor Dee Dee Osgood, who is in her late 30s. Her classes mix Prince with Baldwin, Cleaver, Angela Davis, Marvin Gaye and others. For Shahid, it's intellectual stimulation. He begins a friendship with Dee Dee that soon leads to a sexual relationship between the teacher and student. Kureishi pulls no punches in his description of the affair. There are explicit scenes of lovemaking, but the sex is not pornographic.

Pulling Shahid in the opposite direction is a clique of radical Islamic fundamentalists led by Riaz, a quiet, almost wimpy older student who can hold an audience in the palm of his hand while speaking. Shahid lacks a central of authority. His father is dead, his mother does not command authority, his sister in law is a conservative bore and his flashy older brother Chili is succumbing to drugs. The meaning of life offered by his religious friends and their efforts to combat racism is attractive to Shahid, and much of the novel involves his tug of war between Dee Dee's influence and Riaz's. Eventually, the controversy over The Satanic Verses results in a book burning that forces Shahid to make a final choice. The consequences lead to violence.

Kureishi knows how to deliver humor and farce. And there are several instances: The radical clique worships a decayed eggplant that is rumored to contain holy verse; a communist professor develops a stutter that gets progressively worse as Eastern Europe become more democratic; and Riaz's clothes, while under Shahid's watch, are stolen from a coin laundrette.

The Black Album is populated by vivid, very creative characters. Besides Shahid, Dee Dee and Riaz, there's Chili, Shahid's brother who idolizes Al Pacino and Martin Scorsese but is discovering that crime and drugs in the real world suck. There's Dee Dee's estranged husband, the stuttering Communist professor Brownlow who lusts after Moslem girls in veils. Chad, a former drug dealer turned convert to Riaz's doctrines, is a compelling tragic figure. Adopted by a white couple, his discovery that he has no identity causes him to leap too far into fanaticism, with tragic results. The novel is also populated with drug dealers, foolish politicians, racist council inhabitants and scared Asian immigrant families.

A theme to The Black Album might be Imagination. It certainly combats religious rigidity. Late in the novel, Shahid tells a sympathetic member of the Moslem clique that he can't have any boundaries, even one set by God. That may offend some readers, but given the choice the young student faces, he's making a wise decision. Notes: Dee Dee Osgood's fate is mentioned in passing in Kureishi's later novel, Gabriel's Gift, where she's now a successful psychologist. The time frame is just after the millennium

[Zaki · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Black Album is an excellent little novel exploring the dichotomy of being a muslim in a non-muslim society. It's like a catch-22 situation sometimes.

[Amy Clarke · Rating 2 out of 5]

First posted on asuiterclarke.com:

Studying a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing made me a critical reader. That was one of the many benefits of doing that degree, besides the obvious insights and instruction for my own writing. But still, I really hate to be critical. I like to look for positive aspects of things and brush over the negative.

In book reviewing, however, I need to throw that habit out the window. Otherwise, I will beat around the bush and never really say what I want to say, which is this:

I did not like The Black Album. I wanted to–really, I did. Because it just so happens that I’ve met the author, and it’s always harder to be harsh about someone’s writing when you know him. However, as much as I tried throughout the reading of this book, I couldn’t find anything to like. Hanif Kureishi is undoubtedly a good writer, well respected in the writing community, and a multi-award-winner. And there are obviously plenty of people who liked his second novel.

I’m just not one of them. I enjoy reading diverse writing, and I do think that there isn’t enough of it in the mainstream these days. In that way, this was a refreshing read because I got to see inside the mind of someone very different from me: a young man, just starting uni in London, who grew up in a family from Pakistan.

There was a slight familiarity to his circumstances because I, too, have been a foreigner leaving home for the first time to attend university in London. I understand the uneasiness and excitement of arriving in London, being on my own, living among strangers and trying to make friends while I discover who I really am. Those things I understand, and for that reason I was able to empathize with Shahid, even if just in the smallest way.

Within weeks of arriving in London, Shahid meets his radical Muslim neighbors and falls for his married, liberal university professor. He is torn between his love of literature and hunger for knowledge, his sexual feelings for Deedee and the excitement of exploring the world of drugs and alcohol with her, and the passionate beliefs of his neighbor Riaz and his small band of followers.

There’s a lot to work with here, but somehow, nothing much really happens. I found Shahid a weak character in every sense of the word. He seems incapable of making up his mind from one chapter to the next. At first, he’s going to leave Deedee and commit wholeheartedly to following Riaz and fighting for the Islamic faith. Then, pages later, he’s in bed with Deedee and ready to give up any interest in religion in order to be with her. And then, all of a sudden, he’s in his room and wishing he could just be alone and read his books.

Now I suppose that’s not entirely unrealistic. We all face tough decisions in life, especially when we’re young and just starting out and don’t know our place in the world. That part of it is real to me. This is a coming-of-age story, after all, and that often involves a great amount of indecision.

The issue I have is that even with all of the militant religion; the obscene sexual discussion; the imbibing of multiple illegal substances and alcohol; and the drama with Shahid’s brother becoming a cocaine addict and losing all his money, his wife, and his child because of it–I still felt like nothing happened. No one changed, at least not in any satisfying way.

Kureishi’s writing isn’t bad. Some of the dialogue snaps on the page and his descriptions of London are certainly familiar to me, even though they were of London 20 years ago. There are moments of intensity when Riaz’s band of followers decide to burn Midnight’s Children on the university campus, or when they chase down Deedee and Shahid toward the end.

As a reader, though, I always want at least one character to love. Even if it’s a person that I would never get along with in real life, I want to love him or her because I’m seeing the world through that character’s eyes. Unfortunately, I looked for 276 pages and that character, for me, was not to be found.

[Fiona · Rating 2 out of 5]

This novel feels as relevant today as when it was written in 1995. In fact, if I’d read this in 1995 I think I would have been baffled by it, isolated as New Zealand was pre-9/11 from the cultural tension between Islam and the Western world. Unfortunately, I don’t thinks its relevance comes from the way the book is written but from its subject matter. The writing seems a little pedestrian, like the ideas were more important than the art. And even then, the ideas are not particularly nuanced. This last observation may be from the benefit of hindsight, as well as the mountain of essays, novels, poetry and books analysing the relationship between Islam and the West. The central character, Shahid, is caught between two Islamic extremes: the capitalist rationalism of his sister-in-law and the pious extremism of the Muslim group he become involved in. The fact that he ultimately rejects both of these extremes in favour of Western liberalism seems overly simplistic. It made me wonder who the book was written for. Referencing the fatwa placed on Salman Rushdie for The Satanic Verses, it seems like a sop for Western readers, ultimately cheerleading Western ideas of free speech and rationalism without ever really challenging those readers’ preconceptions of the Islamic World. I don’t mean that it should have supported the fatwa but the depiction of the Muslim community seemed so two dimensional, without any real examination of the causes of cultural tension and disenfranchisement. With political novels like this one, I want to have my thinking challenged, for a conflict to be presented in a way that I’ve never considered. Unfortunately, The Black Album never came close to doing this.

[فیصل مجید · Rating 3 out of 5]

حنیف قریشی ایک برطانوی لکھاری ہیں جنکے والد پاکستانی اور والدہ برطانوی قومیت رکھتی تھی۔ The Black Album انکا دوسرا ناول ہے اور میرا پہلا اتفاق ہے۔
ناول کی سیٹنگ 1989 لندن ہے جب مرکزی کردار شاہد پاکستان سے لندن آتا ہے۔ یہاں وہ اعلیٰ تعلیم حاصل کرنا چاہتا ہے لیکن وہ دیگر مسائل کو شکار ہو جاتا ہے جسکا تعلق پاکستان اور انگلینڈ کے ثقافتی فرق اور کشمکش سے ہے۔ اچھی بات یہ دکھائی ہے کہ مرکزی کردار کوئی بنیاد پرست نہیں ہے بلکہ کافی حد تک آزاد خیال ہے۔ Easy-going ہے۔ شراب پیتا ہے اور آزادانہ تعلق رکھتا ہے لیکن مصنف نے نہایت خوبصورتی سے دکھایا ہے کہ وہ پھر بھی انگلینڈ میں ایڈجسٹ نہیں ہوپاتا۔ اسے قدم قدم پر نسلی تعصب کا سامنا ہے۔ blasphemy اور آزادی اظہار جیسے حساس مسئلے کو موضوع بنایا گیا ہے۔
بنیادی کرداروں کی تعداد محدود ہے۔ کہانی سادہ اور محدود ہے۔ ناول کا پلاٹ زیادہ تر گفتگو سے آگے بڑھتا ہے۔ مکالمے سارے Witty ہیں۔ زبان کا خوبصورتی سے استمعال کیا ہے۔ کیونکہ مصنف کا مطالعہ وسیع ہے اور اسکا اظہار وہ اپنی تحریر میں ادبی تلمیحات کے ذریعے کرتا ہے۔ انداز کافی بے باک ہے لہذا اس کتاب کو پڑھنے کے لئے تحمل درکار ہے۔
گو کہ یہ ناول 1995 کو شائع ہوا ہے لیکن آج بھی اس بہت کچھ ہے جو حال سے مطابقت رکھتا ہے۔ بہرحال ایک قابل مطالعہ ناول ہے۔

از Faisal Majeed

[W]

The story of a conflicted character,a British man of Pakistani descent torn between his conservative Muslim background,and his hedonistic desires. (3 stars).

[Tzatziki · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quando io e il mio amico Massimo eravamo due giovanissimi appassionati, ma poco esperti di musica, fantasticavamo spesso sul "Black album" di Prince, uscito in pochissime copie, con la copertina completamente nera e senza alcun riferimento al cantante.
Eravamo d'accordo che non avremmo mai comprato un disco a scatola chiusa senza sapere di chi fosse, ma continuavamo a chiederci che tipo di canzoni ci avesse inserito Prince. Nel frattempo non potevamo certo lamentarci: avevamo a nostra disposizione numerosi suoi album: "Parade", "Around the world in a day", "Sign o' the times" e poi "Lovesexy" con quella copertina dove lui stava seduto nudo su un fiore, mezzo uomo e mezzo donna, che io guardavo chiedendomi se mi attraesse o mi ripugnasse. Non lo capivamo bene io e Massimo, ma ne eravamo conquistati: suonava il funk, il soul, il rock e il rap, era mezzo nero e mezzo bianco, bassissimo e femmineo ma super maschio al tempo stesso. Nella sua musica ritrovavamo senza saperlo la storia della musica nera americana: James Brown, Marvin Gaye, Jimi Hendrix, Little Richard.
Ah, ma io dovevo parlare del libro...
Lo ammetto: l'ho letto solo per il titolo, che è un omaggio al genio di Minneapolis, ma Kureishi mi aveva deluso un po' dopo il Budda delle periferie. Qui devo ammettere che non è male, c'è un bellissimo spaccato dell'Inghilterra di fine anni '80 (quella che io frequentavo ancora), il protagonista a tratti ti fa innervosire perché è un po' coglione, ma alla fine lo perdoni perché neanche lui può fare a meno dei suoi dischi di Prince.

[Ale · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book that sets out to explore human nature and the powers of imagination, love and religion, The Black Album is perhaps a tad too ambitious in scope. The story follows Shahid, a student in London in 1989, torn between the liberalism of England, as dreamed by his parents, and the draw of religion, embodied by a group of fellow Pakistani Muslim students, lead by the charismatic Riaz. It is the year of the fatwa against Salman Rushdie for his work, The Satanic Verses, but also a year of Prince, Madonna, ecstasy, the fall of Communism across Eastern and Central Europe and disillusionment with Tory values.

Kureishi genuinely raises some thought-provoking questions: what makes a family stay together? What is the role of religion in our materialistic lives? Does it really provide an adequate framework, and can we reconcile its requests with our own selfish natures? How important is imagination, and by extension, what is the role of books in modern society? Can we challenge ourselves, or are we doomed to simple black/white answers? What does it mean to be English, and can former colonies truly reconcile their history with their attempts to integrate into Western society; should they even attempt to?

Sadly... he's just not very good at really explaining his thought processes through. To a certain extent, I can understand Shahid's desire to both please his parents, and find spiritual peace (which, weirdly enough, I found in atheism), but I cannot understand his ultimate choice. Because Kureishi never really goes in too much detail, despite following Shahid entirely, and it always seems like he has too many ideas that never really develop. Ultimately, it's an interesting novel, and I wish, I really wish, that he had done it better, cleaner, crisper.

[Leonie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book seemed like a prophecy of things to come for modern Britain. Set in the late 80s around the time of Salman Rushdie's fatwah, it investigates the relationship between young British muslims and the mainstream white culture. The central character is torn between being devout and sharing the virtues and values of his muslim brothers and launching into the rave culture and free wheeling morals of his fellow students.

It all comes to a head over the burning of Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses and the protaganist gets caught between two worlds, forcing him to choose which one he wants to live in.

[Denise · Rating 3 out of 5]

As interesting as I found the premise, the book itself could barely hold my attention. Slowpaced and with no characters that were either likable or interesting enough to keep me reading - I kept putting the book down after a chapter or two because I just didn't care all that much and had to push myself to pick it back up.

[Godzilla · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hmmm - this was thought provoking in some ways, and was set against an interesting backdrop, but I felt the characters were poorly drawn and left me cold.

The story meanders, whilst making some good points, but ultimately led me down the path of disappointment.

[Maria · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kureishi's personal inclination creates an imbalance dichotomy between fundamentalism and liberalism. Good read though.

[Chris Hall · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this to be a very worthwhile read. Well-written, with some outstanding paragraphs of finely-crafted prose, this short novel explores the tensions within Shahid's character as he tries to resolve the conflict between the freedoms of student life and the radical outlook of some of his circle of Muslim friends.
Set in 1989, the year that the fatwa was issued against, Salman Rushdie's novel, 'The Satanic Verses', the setting paints a realistic, raw and gritty picture of Britain at that time as Shahid bounces between hedonism and fundamentalism in an attempt to find a place for himself in the world.
The book contains scenes of a graphic sexual nature, drug-taking and violence, although none of these things are gratuitous in relation to the story of a young man in late-eighties London.
A prescient novel, if one considers subsequent events both in the UK and worldwide.

[Ashish · Rating 4 out of 5]

Somewhere around 3.5 stars.

Having recently discovered Kureishi, and this book in a book buying expedition (and thanks to favourable reviews from reader friends) I decided to give this one a go. This isn't the book that the author is most well known for, but the premise looked interesting. Much like the other book that I read by him, the book is based on the second generation South Asian immigrant experience in the UK.

The book follows the journey of the protagonist of South Asian roots, relatively privileged, a bit aloof and removed from his roots, trying to make his way through college as he is pulled from either side and conflicted when it comes to religion, liberalism, individuality, guilt, a desire to pave his own path while having a sense of belonging and a higher cause. He is an easily impressionable lad who thinks he has a cool head on his shoulders, however, he is also prone to influence from figureheads more headstrong than him. He uses them as crutches to try and forge his path, his ideology wavers with the people around him, the needle of his moral compass is suspended in the range of powerful polar rhetoric from either side.

The book shows a realistic portrayal of the socio-religio-politico-economic landscape of the UK of the time, and a lot of it still echoes through time. Issues like religious segregation and assimilation, immigration, liberalism and how it deals with minority rights, racism and its relevance, and the will of society to tackle these things are prevalent in this story. It's teeming with characters of all hues and colour, literally and figuratively. It's funny in a circumstantial way as it has an underlying satirical diatribe of society as we know it. It raises pertinent questions, the answers to which are not easy.

[Joely · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

This book explores Shahid's struggle between the Muslim fundamentalism of his 'friends' and the liberalism of his lover, and college professor, Deedee Osgood. The novel's blurb makes it sound like Deedee's liberalism is the catalyst for Shahid's internal conflict, but his almost accidental entry into the world of fundamentalism I felt was just as provoking. I think Shahid wants religion to a certain extent, he wants something to believe in, but without giving up reading and writing and sex; but Deedee doesn't understand religion and his 'friends' don't want to know of books or sex. I definitely enjoyed the pace of the book, as Shahid becomes more and more entangled with both sides, and his 'friends' become more extreme.

[Tittirossa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Scritto nel 1990, attuale come una fotografia di oggi. Il bello di questo libro è che fa provare simpatia per le stesse persone che trovi odiose quando leggi i giornali! Nel libro c'è tutto quello che è successo negli anni successivi: la rivolta degli islamici in occidente, il terrorismo, il perchè del ritorno del fondamentalismo. Persi senza la loro identità religiosa, affascinati dalla possibilità di vivere anche in un altro mo(n)do, disgustati dall'Occidente senza fede, rifiutati sia dai Paesi in cui emigrano, sia da quelli da cui provengono: i personaggi di Kureishi sono l'emblema delle mille realtà dell'Islam in Occidente.

[Luca Sofie · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was required reading for my English class and we finally finished studying it. My main problem with these books were the characters, that may be the case because we read the play not the novel, but they made no sense. They seemed very forced and were reduced to one single character trait (which was religion in most cases and that isn’t even a character trait). I appreciate the themes the author commented on although I didn’t get a lot of the references because I have no real cultural knowledge of London in the 1980s. Maybe it would have been better to read the novel to understand the context and the characters better.

[Anesa Sula · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had to read this book for my english a-level and honestly it’s easily one of the worst books I’ve ever read. The plot itself is just weird and boring the writing is dry and not really good either.
The fact that the author built up the entire plot and then suddenly ends the book so abruptly also makes zero sense to me.
The part when the characters suddenly believed to have found gods sign in a freaking eggplant, showed me that this book is just weird and absurd.
Personally I must say I really disliked this book and I am more than relieved to finally have finished it.

[Frank · Rating 2 out of 5]

A kind of scurrilous coming of age story, meant to be funny. But it misses the mark.

Listed as a novel, my copy is a short a dramatisation, in which a self oblivious protagonist (Shaheed) is buffeted about by various extreme influences. It's not clear whether he will become a serious writer, a junky, a groupie, or an austere imam. Perhaps he will find a way to combine all of them?

______

I can handle the English slang without difficulty. But what does this mean:

“Shahid U Got that Look …! Na – he’s Rockhard in a Funky Place.
 
Deedee (joining in the game) I knew him with a Raspberry Beret on his head.
 
Shahid (concerned) Condition of the Heart?
 
Deedee No. Sign o’ the Times. Purple Rain. He was a One Man Jam!
 
Shahid Hot Thing! That’s action to the max. Like when you were on picket lines.”

[Suhail Shaikh · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book came to me by chance. I went in blind as I was unaware of Hanif Kureishi's work. The blurb of the book excited me. Shahid's unending war between fundamentalism and liberalism is an issue I personally face daily. It is safe to say, I feel the same way as DeeDee but like Shahid, my company or rather my ideals keep me in a compromising position. Hanif Kureishi has done a splendid job in helping Shahid maneuver the curves of Islamic Fundamentalism and find his own voice.

As one would see from the blurb, the book also comments on the fatwah given out against Salman Rushdie for his book, "The Satanic Verse", and how the existence and separation of literature with fanaticism is often blurred by the so-called "uneducated, middle class immigrants."

This book made me happy and there are multiple takeaways which I would appreciate for the youth to relish in.

[Declan Cochran · Rating 4 out of 5]

It slightly comes apart in the final thirty pages or so, but the vast majority of this book is a brilliantly derived, funny, scary, allegorical tale of a young Pakistani man torn between the 'Liberal' world of academia (sex, drugs, art, literature, more sex), and his slow radicalisation into militant Islam. It makes a continuous virtue of its potentially trite plot mechanism through embracing its conflicts wholeheartedly, and Kureishi writes with a beautiful, clear-eyed energy that makes this book a deeply evocative 'intelligent young man' novel.

[Karina · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5⭐️
“Give me your aubergine. Stick it in my earth and let me bless it with my holy waters.“

[Ajša P.]

Will formulate my thoughts about this in that 10 page essay I need to write about it. It's certainly making me think, I'll say that.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Much better than Buddha - and sadly prescient. I’ve often wondered if Kureishi’s short story ‘My Son, The Fanatic’ preceded this and served as a kind of blueprint. They certainly have a lot in common.

[Kayla Hertz · Rating 1 out of 5]

An unbearable hot mess. I loved The Buddha of Suburbia but wouldn't recommend this to anyone.

[king bitchard 💜 · Rating 3 out of 5]

It raised some very interesting questions and made me think, but it wasn’t exactly a coherent or entirely compelling work. Maybe 3.25 stars.

[Fio · Rating 1 out of 5]

medio un embole