The Buddha Of Suburbia

Winner of the Whitbread First Novel Award 'A wonderful novel. I doubt I will read a funnier one, or one with more heart, this year, possibly this decade.' Angela Carter, Guardian The hero of Hanif Kureishi's first novel is Karim, a dreamy teenager, desperate to escape suburban South London and experience the forbidden fruits which the 1970s seem to offer. When the unlikely opportunity of a life in the theatre announces itself, Karim starts to win the sort of attention he has been craving - albeit with some rude and raucous results. 'One of the best comic novels of growing up, and one of the sharpest satires on race relations in this country that I've ever read.' Independent on Sunday 'Brilliantly funny. A fresh, anarchic and deliciously unrestrained novel.' Sunday Times 'A distinctive and talented voice, blithe, savvy, alive and kicking.' Hermione Lee, Independent

This is the story of Karim Amir, an Englishman born and bred - almost, who lives with his English mother and Indian father in the South London suburbs.

This is an excellent guide to Hanif Kureishi's ground-breaking novel. It features a biography of the author (including an in-depth interview with Kureishi), a full-length analysis of the novel, and a great deal more. If you're studying this novel, reading it for your book club, or if you simply want to know more about it, you'll find this guide informative and helpful. This is part of a new series of guides to contemporary novels. The aim of the series is to give readers accessible and informative introductions to some of the most popular, most acclaimed and most influential novels of recent years - from ‘The Remains of the Day' to ‘White Teeth'. A team of contemporary fiction scholars from both sides of the Atlantic has been assembled to provide a thorough and readable analysis of each of the novels in question.

“If Huckleberry Finn were set on the Mexican-American border and written by the creators of South Park, it might read something like this.” —San Francisco Chronicle Hailed by critics and lauded by readers for its riotously funny and scathing portrayal of America in an age of trial by media, materialism, and violence, Vernon God Little was an international sensation when it was first published in 2003 and awarded the prestigious Man Booker Prize. The memorable portrait of America is seen through the eyes of a wry, young protagonist. Fifteen-year-old Vernon narrates the story with a cynical twang and a four-letter barb for each of his townsfolk, a medley of characters. With a plot involving a school shooting and death-row reality TV shows, Pierre’s effortless prose and dialogue combine to form a novel of postmodern gamesmanship. “A dangerous, smart, ridiculous, and very funny first novel . . . Pierre renders adolescence brilliantly, capturing with seeming effortlessness the bright, contradictory hormone rush of teenage life.” —Sam Sifton, The New York Times

Seminar paper from the year 2009 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,3, University of Regensburg (Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik), course: English Literature III - The 20th Century, language: English, abstract: “My name is Karim Amir, and I am an Englishman born and bred, almost. I am often considered to be a funny kind of Englishman, a new breed as it were, having emerged from two old histories. But I don’t care – Englishman I am (though not proud of it), from the South London suburbs and going somewhere. Perhaps it is the odd mixture of continents and blood, of here and there, of belonging and not, that makes me restless and easily bored. Or perhaps it was being brought up in the suburbs that did it. [...] I was looking for trouble, any kind of movement, action and sexual interest I could find, because things were so gloomy, so slow and heavy [...] it was all getting me down and I was ready for anything.” (The Buddha 3) The first lines of Kureishi’s novel reveal most of what this “utterly irreverent, wildly improper but also [...] truthful [...] and very funny” (Salman Rushdie) story will deal with: “initiation, identity, the outsider looking in, and racial conflict. All of these issues are introduced in the first paragraph.” (Kaleta 68) Karim Amir, the son of an Indian father and a white English mother is the protagonist and narrator of the novel The Buddha of Suburbia. First published in 1990, the novel is considered to be Hanif Kureishi’s most successful novel. It combines the two genres “Bildungsroman” and “Condition of England” novel. Both are typical for the 19th century, but Kureishi successfully combines them both and brings them into a contemporary setting. (Bentley 161) The term “Bildungsroman” was coined by the German philologist Johann Morgenstern and arose during the German Enlightenment, presenting the psychological, moral and social shaping of a usually young protagonist...

Birmingham, England, c. 1973: industrial strikes, bad pop music, corrosive class warfare, adolescent angst, IRA bombings. Four friends: a class clown who stoops very low for a laugh; a confused artist enthralled by guitar rock; an earnest radical with socialist leanings; and a quiet dreamer obsessed with poetry, God, and the prettiest girl in school. As the world appears to self-destruct around them, they hold together to navigate the choppy waters of a decidedly ambiguous decade.

One night, when I am old, sick, right out of semen, and don't need things to get any worse, I hear the noises growing louder. I am sure they are making love in Zenab's bedroom which is next to mine.Waldo, a fêted filmmaker, is confined by old age and ill health to his London apartment. Frail and frustrated, he is cared for by his lovely younger wife, Zee. But when he suspects that Zee is beginning an affair with Eddie, 'more than an acquaintance and less than a friend for over thirty years,' Waldo is pressed to action: determined to expose the couple, he sets himself first to prove his suspicions correct - and then to enact his revenge.Written with characteristic black humour and with an acute eye for detail, Kureishi's eagerly awaited novella will have his readers dazzled once again by a brilliant mind at work.

Essay from the year 2011 in the subject Didactics - English - Literature, Works, grade: 2.2, Churchill College, Cambridge, language: English, abstract: A consideration of Kureishi's breakthrough novel as a bildungsroman and a consideration of all the barriers in English society to the protagonist's success.