Lynn Barber

Truly inspirational: the hospital diary of Hanif Kureishi

‘My world has been smashed...and there is nothing I can do about’, writes Kureishi of the freak accident in 2022 that has left him paralysed. ‘But I will not go under. I will make something of it’

Hanif Kureishi. 
issue 02 November 2024

You’d think a book about a paralysed man lying in hospital for a year would be bound to be depressing. It never is. Hanif Kureishi is such an exhilarating writer that you read agog even when he’s describing having his nappies changed or fingers stuck up his bottom.

It all started on Boxing Day 2022 when he was sitting watching television in his girlfriend Isabella’s flat in Rome.

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