What do you think?
Rate this book
My Beautiful Launderette
Described by Stuart Hall as "one of the most riveting and important films produced by a black writer in recent years," My Beautiful Laundrette was a significant production for its director Stephen Frears and its writer Hanif Kureshi. Christine Geraghty considers it a crossover between television and cinema, realism and fantasy, and as an independent film targeting a popular audience. She deftly shows how it has remained an important and timely film in the 1990s and early 2000s, and her exploration of the film itself is an original and entertaining achievement.
69 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1986
24 people are currently reading
1106 people want to read
About the author
Hanif Kureishi
128 books1,123 followersHanif 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.
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.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 65 reviews
July 12, 2018
This is the final screenplay for the movie adaptation of the same name. I recently discovered the author and came across this underrated classic while looking up the work he is famous for.
It's a short read as the text narrates the action as the author wants it to unfold on the screen. It's quite like reading a play on a bigger scale with more scene transitions and acts.
The story is rooted in the economics and class struggle of England in the 70s and 80s with a backdrop of immigration. The story revolves around a South Asian family which has established itself in the family business way, escaping the restrictions of their homeland and flourishing in the west but still hating the people. The xenophobia and racism on one side, with tribalism and a desire to ''stick with their own kind'' on the other, shows us the primal instinct of human behaviour. We follow the young protagonist trying to make a name for himself in the twisted world while managing the affairs of the heart and budding sexuality. As he tries to maneuver through the seedy underbelly of slummy landlords, scummy skinheads, and cocaine smugglers, he sees hope in the one thing that he thinks might give him hope; his beautiful laundrette.
It's a short read as the text narrates the action as the author wants it to unfold on the screen. It's quite like reading a play on a bigger scale with more scene transitions and acts.
The story is rooted in the economics and class struggle of England in the 70s and 80s with a backdrop of immigration. The story revolves around a South Asian family which has established itself in the family business way, escaping the restrictions of their homeland and flourishing in the west but still hating the people. The xenophobia and racism on one side, with tribalism and a desire to ''stick with their own kind'' on the other, shows us the primal instinct of human behaviour. We follow the young protagonist trying to make a name for himself in the twisted world while managing the affairs of the heart and budding sexuality. As he tries to maneuver through the seedy underbelly of slummy landlords, scummy skinheads, and cocaine smugglers, he sees hope in the one thing that he thinks might give him hope; his beautiful laundrette.
May 15, 2024
Could be gayer
Read
May 15, 2024I was like huh this book seems kinda gay and then they just started making out?????
February 5, 2025
Why was everyone in this book different degrees of annoying? I was supposed to feel sympathy for Johnny and Omar, and I tried, but then they did something stupid and I got frustrated with them.
There were moments where I was almost hooked by the story, so I have to give it some credit for that.
It was a quick read as it is “just” a script. I will most likely not watch the movie, sorry.
There were moments where I was almost hooked by the story, so I have to give it some credit for that.
It was a quick read as it is “just” a script. I will most likely not watch the movie, sorry.
May 16, 2024
not gay enough :(
June 28, 2025
This is a play, not a novel, and I have not seen the film, so maybe that affected my enjoyment.
December 17, 2015
London, 1980s.
What can be common between a Pakistani and an ex-National Front member?
Omar and Johnny were childhood friends and teenage sweethearts before Johnny become a neo-Nazist and naturally that ended their friendship.
Few years later they meet again and the story starts...
Wonderful story of racism, cultural differences and sexuality.
What can be common between a Pakistani and an ex-National Front member?
Omar and Johnny were childhood friends and teenage sweethearts before Johnny become a neo-Nazist and naturally that ended their friendship.
Few years later they meet again and the story starts...
Wonderful story of racism, cultural differences and sexuality.
September 25, 2018
I got weirdly addicted to this one. I didn't really like most of the characters except for Papa and Johnny which I think is interesting.
June 20, 2024
I'm generally a fan of Roshnan Seth and Omar's actor Gordon Warnecke was gorgeous in the film :) So this book is the script, which is fun. It's only 70 pages. Features a Christ-thin alcoholic vodka-swigging papa; a mother lost in front of a train; beautiful falling down South London; National Front thugs; a queer young Pakistani man; and a fluff-drying spin-drier in the background. Diaspora, race and becoming in Thatcher's Britain. And the 80s make so much sense as a period in which those themes were explored! 'Paki bashing', Section 28 and the AIDS crisis, intersected here.
The copy I was reading was literally falling apart in my hands - so if I get banned from the uni library... whoops. My first time there ended with a librarian threatening to frisk me for (accidentally) trying to sneak out the Origin of Species, so probably deserved at this point.
It’s a little smutty, in a kind of funny way with the straights; ‘bouncing up and down on his huge stomach... red corset and outrageous worn-for-a-joke underwear.’ Takes a while for Jonny and Omar to get together, but as another review says… they start making out. I would agree with them… it's not gay enough. Actually, a discussion point of the evening, my friend from school was saying she thinks I’m bi; I was trying to explain to her that I’d have been gayer if I'd known more pretty men. So maybe I'm like the book.
I like the detail that the film-set laundrette was so convincing that people started coming off the street to try and get their laundry done in there. And that Hanif Kureishi is a friend of Salman Rushdie.
The copy I was reading was literally falling apart in my hands - so if I get banned from the uni library... whoops. My first time there ended with a librarian threatening to frisk me for (accidentally) trying to sneak out the Origin of Species, so probably deserved at this point.
It’s a little smutty, in a kind of funny way with the straights; ‘bouncing up and down on his huge stomach... red corset and outrageous worn-for-a-joke underwear.’ Takes a while for Jonny and Omar to get together, but as another review says… they start making out. I would agree with them… it's not gay enough. Actually, a discussion point of the evening, my friend from school was saying she thinks I’m bi; I was trying to explain to her that I’d have been gayer if I'd known more pretty men. So maybe I'm like the book.
I like the detail that the film-set laundrette was so convincing that people started coming off the street to try and get their laundry done in there. And that Hanif Kureishi is a friend of Salman Rushdie.
November 9, 2025
I had very high expectations for this, and at first, I thought it didn’t surpass those. It didn’t reveal much of Omar’s personality until he was given a chance to create himself with the launderette, which was a nice touch
A particularly striking part of it was:
OMAR: What were they doing on marches through Lewisham? It was bricks and bottles and Union Jacks. It was immigrant out. It was kill us. People we knew. And it was you. He saw you marching. You saw his face, watching you. Don’t deny it. We were there when you went past. (OMAR is being held by JOHNNY, in his arms.) Papa hated himself and his job. He was afraid on the street for me.
A particularly striking part of it was:
OMAR: What were they doing on marches through Lewisham? It was bricks and bottles and Union Jacks. It was immigrant out. It was kill us. People we knew. And it was you. He saw you marching. You saw his face, watching you. Don’t deny it. We were there when you went past. (OMAR is being held by JOHNNY, in his arms.) Papa hated himself and his job. He was afraid on the street for me.
June 29, 2019
A fast moving play about Inter-racial conflict during the 80s Britain
South London, impoverished Londoners in conflict with middle class, upwardly mobile Indians & Pakistanis.
A satire on British Capitalist society. This fast-moving play in which we see the underbelly of some sectors of British Capitalist society where each individual feeds off each other. There is little warmth and love except the relationship between the main protagonist & his old school friend. There is bitterness, anger, acrimony & despair.Most of the other various characters see the worst of each other & act in an inhuman manner.
South London, impoverished Londoners in conflict with middle class, upwardly mobile Indians & Pakistanis.
A satire on British Capitalist society. This fast-moving play in which we see the underbelly of some sectors of British Capitalist society where each individual feeds off each other. There is little warmth and love except the relationship between the main protagonist & his old school friend. There is bitterness, anger, acrimony & despair.Most of the other various characters see the worst of each other & act in an inhuman manner.
August 18, 2023
Just did not fit for me.
Maybe the film is better (I haven’t yet seen it) but I was bored reading this.
I wanted more about queer repression during Thatcherite Britain but it felt lackluster.
Maybe the film is better (I haven’t yet seen it) but I was bored reading this.
I wanted more about queer repression during Thatcherite Britain but it felt lackluster.
August 17, 2020
Hanif Kureishi's 1985 film is a peculiar watch, in all sense of the term. I read the entire script first, before diving into the movie & this review is more focused on the script-reading.
.
Set in Kent, it's set in the tensions and transformations of England post the Second World War. However, the strength (and the setback) of the text lies in the way it absorbs explicit commentary on the condition of the country's socio-economic consciousness. Omar, a Pakistani brought up in England, rises in wealth and power through the connection of his uncle, Nasser. Omar's father was a journalist, who has now succumbed to alcoholism, owing to his despise for the fascist sentiments still prevailing in the country. Johnny, Omar's once-lover, has arrived back in his life, after joining a gang of Anglo-Saxons like him who share anti-immigrant beliefs. This is a complex & rich premise, but to this Kureishi adds an English mistress, a bored Pakistani young woman struggling to acquaint herself with liberty, a corrupt & ruthless Pakistani entrepreneur, and the angst of the immigrant Muslim housewife who doesn't know where and how to belong.
.
Kureishi's story then becomes a window for us to glance into these eccentric lives & varying degrees of struggles. Power isn't concentrated anymore in modern England - the immigrant is acquiring wealth but struggling with socio-cultural belonging and dignity of self, the natives are not people of means but still lay claim to the English nation-state and cultural privilege of identity. Thus, violence too becomes a tool for expression and retaliation for all on this power spectrum, and Kureishi masterfully encapsulates this in the opening scene.
.
However, there is a persistence of disconnect between what this text wants to be and what you may think it is. What is it about? I'm still asking myself this and the closest I've come to an answer is - the text is about the possibilities and struggles of belonging in a changing world. The laundrette is an integral embodiment of the same. Maybe this is why Kureishi doesn't tell us but his characters ask this quite a lot - what makes one belong any less in the set categories of one's place and identity?
.
Set in Kent, it's set in the tensions and transformations of England post the Second World War. However, the strength (and the setback) of the text lies in the way it absorbs explicit commentary on the condition of the country's socio-economic consciousness. Omar, a Pakistani brought up in England, rises in wealth and power through the connection of his uncle, Nasser. Omar's father was a journalist, who has now succumbed to alcoholism, owing to his despise for the fascist sentiments still prevailing in the country. Johnny, Omar's once-lover, has arrived back in his life, after joining a gang of Anglo-Saxons like him who share anti-immigrant beliefs. This is a complex & rich premise, but to this Kureishi adds an English mistress, a bored Pakistani young woman struggling to acquaint herself with liberty, a corrupt & ruthless Pakistani entrepreneur, and the angst of the immigrant Muslim housewife who doesn't know where and how to belong.
.
Kureishi's story then becomes a window for us to glance into these eccentric lives & varying degrees of struggles. Power isn't concentrated anymore in modern England - the immigrant is acquiring wealth but struggling with socio-cultural belonging and dignity of self, the natives are not people of means but still lay claim to the English nation-state and cultural privilege of identity. Thus, violence too becomes a tool for expression and retaliation for all on this power spectrum, and Kureishi masterfully encapsulates this in the opening scene.
.
However, there is a persistence of disconnect between what this text wants to be and what you may think it is. What is it about? I'm still asking myself this and the closest I've come to an answer is - the text is about the possibilities and struggles of belonging in a changing world. The laundrette is an integral embodiment of the same. Maybe this is why Kureishi doesn't tell us but his characters ask this quite a lot - what makes one belong any less in the set categories of one's place and identity?
August 29, 2023
This is the screenplay of the 1980s film My Beautiful Launderette , starring Daniel Day-Lewis and Gordon Warnecke. You don't need to have seen the film, or indeed the more recent stage adaptation, to enjoy reading this, but I do think it helps!
This is Hanif Kureishi's first film, if memory serves, and it was all put together hastily and on a pretty low budget. Kureishi was still editing when they began filming, if that's any indication of how fast this film went into production. A consideration of class, wealth and race in Thatcher's Britain, My Beautiful Launderette subverts ideas about power in relationships, and asks us to believe that two people -- despite the extreme differences in their circumstances, despite the pain they have and will cause one another, and with the mix of historic and contemporary barriers to their relationship -- can love each other. The relationship at the heart of this screenplay, for some, seems to come out of nowhere, but those paying attention will realise the inevitability of it. They are two sides to the same coin, each the victim and the antagonist of the other.
Balanced, poignant, sometimes funny, and entirely honest. A true forgotten classic of British cinema.
This is Hanif Kureishi's first film, if memory serves, and it was all put together hastily and on a pretty low budget. Kureishi was still editing when they began filming, if that's any indication of how fast this film went into production. A consideration of class, wealth and race in Thatcher's Britain, My Beautiful Launderette subverts ideas about power in relationships, and asks us to believe that two people -- despite the extreme differences in their circumstances, despite the pain they have and will cause one another, and with the mix of historic and contemporary barriers to their relationship -- can love each other. The relationship at the heart of this screenplay, for some, seems to come out of nowhere, but those paying attention will realise the inevitability of it. They are two sides to the same coin, each the victim and the antagonist of the other.
Balanced, poignant, sometimes funny, and entirely honest. A true forgotten classic of British cinema.
June 7, 2016
It was an interesting opening-point, given that I read this keeping in mind the sociopolitical context in which it was written (at the time), in discussing the negotiation of the dual identity, between that of the diaspora and the British ‘natives’. I don't feel anything personally for this read, but #litmajorwoes, you inevitably take away something or the other from a text. For me, for this one, the dynamics of defining one’s identity, and the strategies that lie under an individual’s decision to identify with a certain social group – be that through race or class, as in Kureishi’s text – is essential in understanding the complexity of the intersecting power struggles within communities that are as multicultural as the one in this text. That being said, it's a good starting point for beginning to understand the fiction of this kind of a situation. (And the gleeful magic realism of the laundrette is aesthetically on point.)
July 24, 2020
absolutely devo that the iconic neck lick was absent from this but, i suppose, incredibly grateful that someone on that film set thought it up for my personal enjoyment and big brain edification. in all seriousness, this story deals with a lot of hefty subjects and manages it really well; if not quite gracefully, then at least without making an arse of itself. i'm not sure i would recommend reading this unless you're a fan of the film, though i can and do wholeheartedly recommend the film for a complex gay relationship in thatcherite england and the fact that i am never not thinking about omar's toast "to us" and daniel day lewis' delivery of the line "a laun-der-ette as big as the ritz. oh yes"
Read
February 18, 2022Alienation runs throughout the whole play: the eldest daughter in the immigrant nuclear household trapped in a dysfunctional family, the academic drinking his words to death in a country that only values one’s worth in labour, the working class fascist, who does not stand with his own people, nor does he stand with his lover’s culture. Not to mention, the ever-present spectre of Thatcherism itself sinking its teeth into Britain.
December 11, 2012
I seem to be in an extreme minority of people who hate this story. Dysfunctional relationships, hypocritical social elitism, bigotry, obnoxious characters, disjointed events and dialogue . . . I fail to recognize the brilliance of this literary masterpiece.
May 12, 2008
Johnny and Omar hooking up = hot.
Inauthentic postcolonial immigration from a partially white guy = not.
Inauthentic postcolonial immigration from a partially white guy = not.
February 4, 2025
💫 3.5 stars
Dirty laundry. Gay love. Family. Money. Racism. Britain. Thatcher.
An exploration of the complexity of multi-cultural/hybrid identity, the rat-race, racism in England in the 1980s, gay relationships, and being young and trying to make it out of shitty circumstances.
Kureishi skilfully balances humour alongside the pain and violence of racism. The characters feel complex and human, and Kureishi tackles the racism rampant during the 1980s towards (but not exclusively) South Asian immigrants and South Asian Britons.
Well worth the read... Even better watching the film since it is a screenplay, but the screenplay does include scenes that were cut out in the editing process that certainly add to the story!
Dirty laundry. Gay love. Family. Money. Racism. Britain. Thatcher.
An exploration of the complexity of multi-cultural/hybrid identity, the rat-race, racism in England in the 1980s, gay relationships, and being young and trying to make it out of shitty circumstances.
Kureishi skilfully balances humour alongside the pain and violence of racism. The characters feel complex and human, and Kureishi tackles the racism rampant during the 1980s towards (but not exclusively) South Asian immigrants and South Asian Britons.
Well worth the read... Even better watching the film since it is a screenplay, but the screenplay does include scenes that were cut out in the editing process that certainly add to the story!
May 2, 2024
4.5 because I think it's worth keeping this story around. Everything Kureishi was saying in 1985 about race, class, citizenship, nationalism, and socioeconomic inequality is still, unfortunately, very relevant. I also appreciate the understated sweetness and complexity of Omar and Johnny's relationship, which come through in spite of the fact that the writing and screenplay format keep the reader slightly at arm's length from their inner worlds.
December 18, 2025
loved it. i enjoyed the themes of forgiveness and dissonance re: johnny and the people he associates with and how they torment omar and his family. reflective of the grime of thatcher britain and indeed the struggle young working class people have always faced in modern britain.
i notice some people who did not like he unpredictability of the characters. in my opinion, they were messy and stupid as young adults are wont to be.
i notice some people who did not like he unpredictability of the characters. in my opinion, they were messy and stupid as young adults are wont to be.
August 23, 2022
It's a different experience, reading screenplays. All is condensed, characters are built of sentences not chapters, stories are imagined not described.. I liked this one a lot, it ended up being rather captivating - community tensions, race, belonging.. Definitely a picture to remember of struggling to succeed in South London in the 80s..
Read
December 12, 2025sometimes you have to say god bless britain
i love the film so definitely skewed my reading of the script but its solid - exploring class and race in thatchers years, the relationship provides a tender string weaving the story together
also its hilarious, it does read like a debut but that makes it even more honest and tender
i love the film so definitely skewed my reading of the script but its solid - exploring class and race in thatchers years, the relationship provides a tender string weaving the story together
also its hilarious, it does read like a debut but that makes it even more honest and tender
May 20, 2022
A sweet li'l book. Never knew I prefer reading screenplays to watching films.
Picked this up after reading an interview about Hanif Kureishi. There's nothing spectacular about it, but it's interesting to see an immigrant/South Asian take on Thatcherite England.
Picked this up after reading an interview about Hanif Kureishi. There's nothing spectacular about it, but it's interesting to see an immigrant/South Asian take on Thatcherite England.
December 27, 2024
3.5☆ — short play that touches upon racial and class tensions in the time of thatcher's britain and a young gay interracial couple at the center of it. it would be so amazing if this play were novelised and the themes were explored in greater detail, especially in regards to the class tensions.
March 13, 2018
Didn't impress much. A very expected stereotypical story.
January 1, 2019
I am going to sound like a douche, but I'm surprised that this script garnered such accolades. It was fine. Not much to it. Will have to watch the film now. As a read, pretty average.
Read
June 9, 2019Difficult to rate - this is the first film script I've read.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 65 reviews