17/05/2026
Deeply moving and always exhilarating to see Hanif Kureishi in conversation with the excellent .akbar yesterday at the Festival of Words discussing Shattered, his account of the accident that left him paralysed. Only Kureishi could have written this memoir/diary - you can see his singular style stamped all over it, unsparing, brutal, poignant, hilarious, ringing with truthfulness. On his astounding hospital dispatches that started out on Twitter in the terrible days following the accident, he said: "When you become disabled, you become a burden, a nuisance, can you make me a cup of tea, it's too hot, it's too cold, you become a tyrant because that's the only way to get what you need. I lost everything I valued except my ability to tell a story."
And then, in a throwback to My Beautiful Laundrette, Arifa and I left the venue, headed into central London and walked smack dab into the White Power march. Plus ça change.
