Mi oído en su corazón

by Hanif Kureishi, Fernando González Corugedo (Translator)

En el origen de este libro hay otro libro, y una deuda a pagar. El agente literario de Hanif Kureishi le entrega un día el manuscrito de una novela que había permanecido once años en sus archivos y que su autor jamás había conseguido publicar. Se la había llevado el padre de Kureishi después del éxito de El buda de los suburbios, y poco tiempo antes de morir. Porque Shannoo Kureishi era un obseso de la literatura que se había pasado la vida escribiendo sin cesar, día tras día, cuando terminaba su trabajo de funcionario en la Embajada de Pakistán en Londres, sin conseguir publicar jamás, sin lectores, sin cómplices con quienes hablar de literatura.

Su hijo, Hanif, decide que va a leer Una adolescencia india, la novela autobiográfica de Shanoo Kureishi, en una suerte de viaje detectivesco al pasado, para saber quién era su padre cuando no era su padre, y saber también quién es él, ahora que ya no es un hijo, y encontrar las fuentes de su literatura, de su deseo de ser escritor. Y en este viaje a su infancia, y a la infancia de su padre, va a utilizar también como contrapunto esclarecedor los tres libros, también autobiográficos, de su tío Omar Kureishi, que al parecer fue todo lo que su padre deseó ser y no pudo, un brillante jugador y comentarista de cricket, un periodista célebre, un escritor reconocido y un bon vivant que se deslizaba con facilidad del deporte al periodismo y del periodismo a la literatura. Y que permaneció arraigado en su país, en su cultura.

Este libro que comienza como un ensayo, se abre en una espléndida narrativa sustentada en asociaciones libres, que le permite al autor no sólo rastrear y reconstruir la novela familiar, sino también las relaciones entre padres e hijos de al menos tres generaciones. Nada menos que la construcción de la masculinidad, el acceso a la cultura y al orden de lo simbólico, a la literatura. Y le permite también desvelar -o al menos intentarlo- el nudo de deseos entre su padre y él, entre ese pequeño burócrata atravesado por las palabras que se pasó la vida escribiendo, exiliado en los suburbios, en los márgenes de la cultura inglesa, y que finalmente encontrará un lugar en la literatura como personaje del libro que escribe su hijo, uno de los más reconocidos escritores ingleses, sobre los restos de los libros que su padre nunca consiguió publicar. Y así paga, quizá, la eterna deuda paterna.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, Memoir, British Literature, Pakistan, 21st Century

216 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

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

[iva° · Rating 5 out of 5]

potaknut pronalaskom očevog neobjavljenog romana "odrastati u indiji", 11 godina nakon očeve smrti hanif kureishi kreće u potragu za svojim ocem, za njihovim odnosom i, zapravo, za samim sobom. iz tog očevog rukopisa koji ima jak autobiografski pečat, kureishi analizira, iščitava, preispituje i slaže slagalicu očevog i svog života kroz sfere odgoja, obrazovanja, društva, vlastitih očekivanja, (ne)ispunjenih želja, frustracija, ljubavnih i bračnih odnosa, odnosa s djecom... pokušavajući kompletirati sliku svog i njegovog identiteta.

s obzirom na isprepletenost priča, ovo je na neki način i hanifova autobiografija u kojoj otvoreno progovara o samom sebi -i, pogotovo, o svojim krizama i "problematičnim" fazama života. iznosi ih bez moraliziranja i dociranja čime tekst čini uvjerljivim i iskrenim, kao da je, propitujući život svog oca, imao potrebu izložiti i svoj. ne držeći se strogo samo tog odnosa, njegova razmišljanja idu i u drugim smjerovima - pakistanska politička situacija, psihoterapija, punk pokret, autori koji su utjecali na njega, seksualnost i religioznost, utjecaj snova itd. kureishi ide široko, ali ne i preduboko, znalački povlačeći liniju da se ne udalji od glavne teme.
ozbiljno i razgranato štivo.

[Sara Gallardo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tan personal, tan universal.

"La falta de la vida -el odio por uno mismo, la desesperación, el aislamiento- es un modo de suprimir o hacer invisible el conflicto. La depresión es un tipo de "fijación" ante los embates de la vida, una forma de encontrar un lugar seguro, más allá del conflicto que siempre existe entre deseo y obediencia. Estos dos van juntos, se hacen posibles el uno a la otra. Y, sin embargo, el dolor de vivir tal falta de armonía es tan insoportable que resolverla puede resultar una enfermedad extenuante.
Artistas y terapeutas querrán encontrar palabras para el conflicto. Sin embargo, que mi padre aprobase mis palabras haría que fuera difícil escribirlas, Las palabras habían dejado de acudir, y, sin una catarsis, las palabras hacen que uno se sienta pesado. Lleno de palabras sin usar, me volví inamovible. Pero yo necesitaba palabras para mi propio provecho, porque quería escribir. Aquello era un laberinto. Quizás un modo de rodearlo fuera producir palabras que a él no le gustasen, que fueran mis propias palabras... En concreto, palabras que a mí me parecían rompedoras pero que era necesarias". (p.168)

"La hoja de papel en blanco es como el silencio del psicoanalista. Igual de provocadora y, eventualmente, igual de reveladora de las dimensiones y deseos del ser. Algunos artistas tienen miedo de que al dirigir la luz hacia alguna oscuridad esencial el psicoanlista le robe sus poderes. Los artistas no son gente sana, su enfermedad es el arte. Sin embargo, tienes tantas posibilidades de perder tu creatividad con el psicoanálisis como de perder tu sexualidad, o el amor por tus hijos, o el método mismo. El hecho es que muchos artistas quieren que les curen de ser artistas, de las obsesiones que estructuran su creatividad, y que en su esencia son tan desconcertantes como cualquier otra adicción o compulsión. La mayoría de los artistas trabajan continuamente, raramente dejan de producir y, si lo hacen, eso les causa mucha ansiedad y pérdida de significado. La libertad de ser artista, aun siendo gratificante, es otra forma de servidumbre o esclavitud, como parecía entender papá. Si la vida y el humor de mi padre estaban determinados por el horario de los trenes, la vida de cualquier artista está controlada por unos horarios igual de estrictos, pero internos". (.187)

[Ali · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have only read one Hanif Kureishi book before - one of his novels, "The Buddha of Suburbia" which I found I didn't enjoy as much as I expected. That was probably my fault rather than that of the book I am sure. This memoir however appealed to me, and I am glad I have read it. It is a very intelligent memoir, a book about literature, family, culture and how, out of a father's ambition, all those things came together to create a gifted writer. Both Hanif Kureishi and his father are revealed honestly within a complicated family structure, where there existed a good deal of rivalry and ambition. Hanif Kureishi contrasts the life he lived in the laid back, drug induced, student London life in the 1970's with the more rigid atmosphere of the India/Pakisitan of his father's youth. As Kureishi Jr learns more about his father from his unpublished writings, he starts to look at his own role as a father to his own boys. Overall this is a poignant, beautifully written memoir.

[Farhan Khalid · Rating 4 out of 5]

You could find a book for every mood, or find a book to change your mood

A book which might suggest a way of thinking, feeling and being

I was getting to know London by its streets and faces

I prefer to write by hand rather than type

The movement of the arm seems closer to drawing

If you aren't an obsessive, you can't be an artist

A book becomes a real book if even just one person opens it and tries to receive its communication

For a while Jung's frailties and religious speculations seemed to me to be more interesting than Freud's austerity and sexual speculations

How can you live your life when your father is failing to live it?

Dad is speaking to me again, and not only from inside my head

Will I be different when I come out?

More importantly, will dad be differently?

For him, reading and writing about his country was enough

That was the distance he liked

Instead of living, he began to write about those who lived

If you tell someone that you are intending to become an artist, you will receive a painful and complex response

The other person, too, wants to be an artist

For Aristotle, melancholia wasn't a worthless state but was a form of thought, of painful philosophical enquiry

Mill called poetry, art and music 'instruments of human culture'

Writing amongst other things, is a form of extended fantasy

One should characterize depression in terms of language rather than brains

[Meditative] 'Sitting' was where you might hear yourself without censorship or interruption

Where you could attend to your incessant internal 'free talking' until it was silent

It wasn’t belief I was looking for

I was looking for solidarity, to see whether there was a Muslim part of me that existed apart from my father

Dostoevsky's characters were mad, Chekov's were neurotic

Reality overwhelmed fiction, leaving nothing for the writer to say

[Anne Van · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved everything about this book! The writer, who I mostly thought of as the screenwriter for "My Beautiful Laundrette", one of my all-time favorite movies, just surprised me on every page. In thinking about his father, an Indian immigrant to London stuck in a clerical job, but constantly writing novels and dreaming of publishing, the writer tells his father's story as well as his own. Very interesting ideas about creativity, writing, identity, religion, the world......

[Veronica Liew · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've always wanted to read Kureishi, but did not expect to pick up an autobiography which he wrote in 2004. Close to,but hardly meditative, is this meandering retelling of his father's life intertwined with that of the other far flung Kureishis, and towered over by the dominant, distant and womanising Colonel Kureishi, the patriarch of the family. Hanif retraces his father's garbled family history by reading his father's writing - themselves relics of a lifetime of failed attempts by his father at becoming a writer writer - and employs that to understand his father and his own motivations to be a writer, to which Hanif successfully portrayed an immigrant's identity in Britain as a successful novelist and playwright, pre-2000s. The writing in this book becomes a lot more brilliant when he started writing about his own breaking of the mold - again something his father never managed to do - when he talks about college life, moving away from home and straight into relationships with women, punk, philosophy, and pop, and his eventual life as a writer. Even the travails of writing, so eloquently captured, is later overshadowed by his melancholic, urgently questioning musings on his father and the Kureishis in the pre-Pakistan past. Not a book for everyone, but it was a timely read for me.

[Lorraine York · Rating 3 out of 5]

Have just finished this memoir by Kureishi, and it's quite fascinating. I've not read another memoir quite like it. In it, Kureishi responds to writings that his own father, who was an aspiring but unsuccessful, unpublished novelist, wrote. In so doing, of course, he writes their complex relationship. I only gave it 3 stars, however, and not more, because, by the end of the memoir (without giving anything away), I thought it had become a bit too obsessively about H.K. Obviously, such a memoir will be, in important ways, about the son, but I wished for a more thorough-going sense of relationship between the two men...held consistently through to the end of the text.

[Vidhya Nair · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read it on a short flight. Reads like present and past musings. Interesting how he discovers his family’s past as he revisits his fathers writings and how it helps him explain his own life and writing. Reflective prose, themes of displacement, interracial relationships, cultural connections, immigration, grief and values. Good single read.

[Lali · Rating 3 out of 5]

At first, the book seems all over the place, Kureishi says so himself when in chapter eight he claims " I have to say I don't know what sort of book I am making here, as I spin my words out of his words, stories out of other stories.It feels more like a pot into which I'm stirring almost everything that occurs to me". However, it comes together towards the end, being the last chapter the best one.
Nevertheless, I was hoping for something different. Kureishi is very hard on his father, even after his death he seems unable to reach him. Where is the love? Perhaps writing this book seems to him like a profession of affection, but as a reader, I remain unconvinced, though it is clear in my mind that they had a difficult relationship, frozen in eternal competition, even when there was a clear winner and loser.

[Zahra · Rating 4 out of 5]

It seems to be a trend with the past couple books that I'm reading, for them to have a fractured structure which is both frustrating and endlessly seductive. I saved a lot of quotes from this book. I am a great lover of memoirs and also have high standards for good memoirs. This is a good memoir! I find the linkage to the father very unique although my biggest critique of this book is that Kureshi causes much confusion with the character names from the dad and uncle's books. Also, I personally find Kureshi's treatment of his own past works in this book, very distasteful—as though I'm reading a research paper on Hanif Kureshi! The parts I enjoyed the most were the ones where he pairs a childhood memory with rumination on the nature of growing up and finding life for oneself. A hazy book, but in a good way.

[Arbër Racaj · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fijn dat Kureishi dit ooit schreef - ik had eerder enkele boeken van hem gelezen en vond zijn schrijfstijl altijd aangenaam. Er is beweging maar ook traagheid in zijn schrijven.
Het feit dat hij zoon van een migrant is vind ik zeer boeiend gezien ik zelf migrant ben en vader van twee jongens die in België geboren zijn.
Aanleiding om het boek te schrijven was ontdekking van een manuscript van zijn vader - een van zijn meerdere ongepubliceerde boeken. In het verhaal onderzoekt hij verder zijn roots terwijl ook met zelfreflectie bezig. Kureishi lijkt me een warme persoonlijkheid, eerlijke man die gewoon tot de kern van levensvragen wil geraken.
Zeker een aanrader!
Na het lezen van het boek kwam ik achter dat de auteur verlamd geraakt is na een ongelukkige val in Rome. Tegenwoordig houdt hij een soort dagboek online waar hij zijn strijd met heel de situatie beschrijft.

[Fadillah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this book might not be everyone's cup of tea. Some may think it is disjointed or confused by the description of the book "reading my father" yet the book author wrote about himself more than his father.

Here's what i think : At first, i was confused, i thought this is going to be just the edited book by his son to honor his late father. Plain and straight like that.

As i read more and more, i found that this book is quite unique. The author rekindling his memory, his childhood, his stories with what his father wrote. Sure, here and there you kinda lost as to whom this stories belong to but I'm impressed with the retelling concept by the author. It felt so sincere and raw. I would love to read more books written by Hanif Kureishi.

[Sofie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this a lot in the beginning: the autobiography of Kureishi's father's fiction, getting to know his father through his unpublished books, the son shifting expertly between 'Shani' of the fiction to Shannoo, the actual nickname of his father. Towards the end, though, it seems too improvised, an "improvised essay" he even himself admits. Nevertheless, I have enjoyed this more than his fiction and I would recommend it.

What have I been doing, opening up father like this, examining, diagnosing, operating on him, so that this work feels like a cross between love-making and an autopsy? I have to say I don't know what sort of book I am making here, ... (114)

[Bertis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully written book exploring his relationship with his father through his dad’s unpublished writing. It is also a family history - the contracted modern family Hanif had in Bromley and the larger group his dad left behind in India and Pakistan. The story loses its way in the second half and becomes more about Hanif and what he remembers of his philosophy degree, unfortunately. However, it does rally by the end, coming back to the idea of fathers and their changing role in the family.

[Vishal · Rating 4 out of 5]

An insightful and bluntly honest look about the life of Asian immigrants in UK and the struggles faced by children in making their lives or clashes with their Indian blood as parents crossed the seas and oceans to make a better life. Hanif Qureshi is a fierce and honest writer, taking the readers into his world and struggling with parents and the former with grandparents.

[José Memun · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sin duda la vida de nuestro padre deja huella, así como la dejaremos en nuestros hijos. Tener un documento o una serie de ellos narrados en ficciones escritas sin éxito por tu padre debe ser un tesoro y mas allá, le mejor de las herencias que un hijo pueda recibir. Gran relato.

[Khatere]

Not that I can argue it isn’t a well-written autobiography but it somewhat lacked the element of unpredictability. Maybe it mainly concerns the Western readers and, coming from a close culture, hence familiar experiences, I couldn’t enjoy it as much.

[Dipesh Mittal · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

[Joseph Richardson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Memoir szn continues. Signed copy found in charity shop. A story told through the old stories found in the author’s dad’s unpublished books.

[Pino · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hani kureishi writing style always fascinates me.

You need at least to read The Buddha of Suburbia , Intimacy and probably The black Album to make sense of what he's talking about besides his father books , relationship and how he made it into being a writer.

[Usain · Rating 4 out of 5]

Het relaas van de schrijver Hanif Kureishi – van o.a. My beautiful Laundrette) – over de kennismaking met de andere schrijver, zijn vader, en diens vader, een militair. Een zoektocht naar zijn roots en de roots van zijn familie in Poona, India. Het India van de Partition. Naar zijn relatie met godsdienst, de islam van India, het hindoeïsme. Van de cultuur van de Paki naar de cultuur van de pop en de punk, in het Londen van de seventies. Het leggen van de puzzle van de immigrant Kureishi. Leerrijk.

[Ana · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book the last year and I was really impressed. I liked it so much...I share the way of thinking of the author Hanif kureishi I and think that it is a very deep, intelligent and sincere the anylisis he makes of familiar conflicts. I have recently read the budha of suburbia and it has been equally a pleasure. It's also a very moving good book. I am begining to read the last Word, his last book now. Of course, I am a big fan of this author

[Tatiana · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's quite interesting to see the cleavage between the picturesque Kureishi, back in Pakistan as opposed to the dull childhood in suburbia of the writer, torn between insatisfaction, the father's pressure and unfulfillment as a writer. The second section that delineates the author's own wanderings interested me less...not a first rate reading

[Pavan Rao]

Intriguing journey of self discovery and the discovery of the the workings of the mind of his father leading to the ultimate realisation.a most easy form of writing makes it a smooth read to indulge in

[Zahid · Rating 4 out of 5]

A touching portrait of his Father and how after finding an unfinished transcript for a novel in his late Father's house leads the son to understand his father much more and the irony that the son became the successful writer rather than the dad who tried for so long...

[Wawe Mapenzi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got this book as a gift. Started it immediately, if only to show how much I appeciated the thought that went into buying it.

It is basically about the writer's life, which makes for an interesting read.

[Ignacio · Rating 4 out of 5]

Honesto y personal. Autobiografía de la relación con su padre, un escritor frustrado.

[María Eugenia · Rating 3 out of 5]

me gustó bastante.

[Ghennet · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hanif Kureishi is a favorate author of mine. This is a vewry touching autobiography focused on a hommage to his father who was a writer of manu unbublished books.

[Farfalle]

Didn't finish it - just not in the mood for such a personal soul-searching look at a parent-child relationship. bah. unrated because unfinished.