The Conversation: Hanif Kureishi

(Tuesday 11th February 2025)

When watching live, you can increase the quality of the video to 720p by pressing the ‘settings cog’ button on the video menu. You can also unmute and change the volume. Please refresh the page if the video does not initially show.

A Tale of Two Cities

The Conversation is a series of weekly events talking about conflict and empathy, inequality and power, climate crisis and wonder through storytelling and action. The first half of the evening is an interview, which is followed by the host and guest joining the audience around tables to take the conversation further.  Everyone is welcome.

A conversation about London, Rome and life with the playwright, screenwriter and novelist, Hanif Kureishi, author of The Buddha of Suburbia – now onstage at the RSC/Barbican, and most recently, the memoir Shattered.

On Boxing Day 2022, in Rome, Hanif Kureishi had a fall. When he came to, in a pool of blood, he was horrified to realise he had lost the use of his limbs. He could no longer walk, write or wash himself. He could do nothing without the help of others, and required constant care in a hospital. So began an odyssey of a year through the medical systems of Italy, with the hope of somehow being able to return home to his house in London. While confined to hospital wards, he felt compelled to write, but being unable to type or to hold a pen, he began to dictate to family members the words which formed in his head. The result an extraordinary series of dispatches from his hospital bed – a diary of a life in pieces, recorded with rare honesty, clarity and courage.

Chaired by Claire Armitstead.