Hanif Kureishi

Ruvani Ranasinha is Professor of Global Literature at King’s College London. She is the author of Hanif Kureishi: Writers and Their Works (2002) and has written extensively on South-Asian fiction and writers. Born in Sri Lanka, she migrated to Britain with her parents at the age of one. She grew up in Epsom in Surrey, read English Literature at the University of Bristol and received her PhD from the University of Oxford. She lives in west London with her husband, daughter and son.

• PrefacePart One: OriginsPart Two: Plays Part Three: FilmsPart Four: Becoming a novelist Part Five: Fathers and sonsPart Six: Private Lives, New Beginnings Part Seven: The turn inwards: writing and psychoanalysis Part Eight: Love and Hate Part Nine: Late StyleAfterword

'This is a magnificent, meticulous and exhaustive biography, and one worthy of its mercurial subject.’ The Spectator 'Ranasinha succeeds in her aim of appearing definitive, while establishing Kureishi’s significance to British cultural life of the past 50 years.' The Times 'Ruvani Ranasinha’s Hanif Kureishi: Writing the self is an illuminating biography; the fact that it is also a portrait of modern Britain is a tribute both to the scope of Kureishi’s work and to the thoroughness of Ranasinha’s research.'The TLS'Ruvani Ranasinha’s biography, which contains hardly a dull page, deserves the adjectives detailed, exhaustive, and magisterial without any such caveats. It is a glorious tome that will take the study of Hanif Kureishi to a new level and is certain to be the book to shape how his works will be studied for years to come (or at least until the diaries are published in full).'Hans-Georg Erney, South Asian Review'Ruvani Ranasinha illuminates the life as well as the work of the beloved writer Hanif Kureishi. This well-researched and exhaustive biography has an aura of completeness.'Amitava Kumar, author of A Time Outside This Time'Ruvani Ranasinha's life of Hanif Kureishi is not just an impressively comprehensive portrait of the artist as a young man, it also provides an engrossing snapshot of his times. With insight and sympathy, Ranasinha captures a rare turning-point in the development of our literary tradition. For all the admirers of Kureishi and his work, this must be essential reading.'Robert McCrum, author of The 100 Best Novels in English 'What a fine and illuminating biography .. .it has been stimulating to read.'Lisa Appignanesi, author of Mad, Bad and Sad