IF NOT FOR YOU

WRITING AND COLLABORATION

Thank you for continuing to read The Kureishi Chronicles. Carlo and I work on this page everyday. This is our living. So, we would be grateful if you could continue to support us in anyway you can, either by subscribing or becoming a paid subscriber.

All our love, Hanif and Carlo

A few days after my accident, while in the ICU in the Gemelli hospital in Rome, I had a strong desire to write for the first time in months. I had to say something about what happened to me.

I asked my partner Isabella if I could dictate my thoughts to her. At that horrific time she was by my side for most of the day, feeding me translating, organising, communicating with friends in the UK.

So we started. Me, semiparalysed lying in bed, talking, extemporaneously – making it up as I went along – and  Isabella tapping away on her Ipad trying to keep up, reminding me that English isn’t her first language, or even her second. We did this most days I think, though I was heavily medicated if not traumatised by the fact that one moment I was an active, alert, alive human being, and the next what I might describe as a talking vegetable.

I do remember when two of the boys arrived that I would insist they write with me. We began to publish these pieces on Substack, a platform I’d used only once before. I had never worked as quickly as this. But I had to find a way to communicate in prose without using my hands. I started, while lying in bed, to work out what I would say, trying to organise it into paragraphs, while leaving space to let my thoughts run as I dictated. This created, in Shattered, a different tone and style to anything I’ve done before. It’s raw and immediate. Not a reflection but an action piece.

I’m writing this now with Kier, who is working with me today in my kitchen since Sachin and Carlo have gone to Glastonbury. I knew this morning that I wanted to talk about this new method of writing but I wasn’t sure how I would approach it.

Before my accident I had no desire to write another novel and had become disillusioned with movies and television after projects – particularly a movie I wrote called The Driver - failed to get made. Occasionally I wrote essays on subjects that interested me but there was no momentum. I was reconciled to it. I would get up from my desk thinking ‘it’s neither here nor there whether I write today. This little essay I’m doing no one cares about. It’s not important.’

As a young man I’d written about adolescence, sex and race; later, about fatherhood, adult partnerships and family. Since the beginning of my career I wrote to try and understand myself and my circumstances; to work out where I was.

But now I liked my life with the kids, with Isabella and my pals. This was new for me. I was content, a family man. I hadn’t much liked being a kid. My parents and my sister were difficult. I’d wanted to get away, to escape. So this new familial chapter was the first time I’d seen us as a unit, going forward together. Before I’d been only an individual. Writing, publishing and the whole commercial business wasn’t what I wanted now. People became more important then books. I’d had success and recognition as a writer, which is what I wanted as teenager. The rest was just vanity, and I didn’t have much of that left.

But working with Carlo, and occasionally the other boys, was a new experience. They were not just typists writing down what I said. Carlo in particular, who is the most argumentative of the three, began to have his own ideas. He would push me against the grain; I would resist but he was tough. Nevertheless, we found a way to work together, particularly on Shattered. It was difficult to hear criticism from my own kids. But if a remark hurts, it could be that it’s exposed something. It is not always a bad idea to listen to others.

Although I’d never directly written with anyone before I did work very closely with Roger Michell on three films, The Mother, Venus and Le Weekend. At times it was painful working with him since there was a great deal of rivalry and resentment between us. He would be rude about my ideas and I about his; it got rough and bullying on occasions. On the other hand we respected and liked one another and had much in common. It wasn’t as pleasant as working with the kids but it was fruitful and I learned a lot about film.

I have been told there is software I can use to dictate my blogs without the help of a typist. But I’m not sure that I’d like to go back to working solo again after this experiment, which has sparked a new creative era for me. It is like a return to the urgency I’d previously had. Once more, I need to tell my story.