Events at the Shop
Hanif Kureishi in conversation with John Sutherland - Something To Tell You
Thursday 29 January 2009
Hanif Kureishi’s Something to Tell You is a cogitation on psychoanalysis as well as a murder story. John Sutherland, here in conversation with Kureishi, finds it unutterably moving, but with such comic vicissitudes that jokes leap out of the page to surprise like a punch in the solar-plexus.
“I am a psychoanalyst. Secrets are my currency.”
Listen now (11:34)
Hanif Kureishi reads a montage of extracts from the novel and riffs on its themes.
In Conversation
Listen now (19:50)
John Sutherland opens the discussion session on the themes of the book by commenting that fiction is the only place nowadays one gets an intelligent meditation on race, and asks Kureishi to respond to this.
Audience Questions
Listen now (22:20)
Kureishi fields audience questions ranging from his thoughts on President Obama to whether novels have a use.
Recorded and edited by Adrian Leibowitz and Brett Wilson
Common Custom:documentary & archive
Hanif Kureishi is the author of novels (including The Buddha of Suburbia, The Black Album and Intimacy), story collections (Love in a Blue Time, Midnight All Day, The Body), plays (including Outskirts, Borderline and Sleep With Me), and screenplays (including My Beautiful Laundrette, My Son the Fanatic and Venus). Among his other publications are the collection of essays Dreaming and Scheming, The Word and the Bomb and the memoir My Ear at His Heart. He lives in London.
John Sutherland is a writer and journalist. Until recently Emeritus Lord Northcliffe Professor of Modern English Literature at UCL, he is the author of many books, including How to Read a Novel, and has twice chaired the Man Booker prize panel.
Further Reading
If you enjoyed this event, you may also be interested in:
Jenny Diski - Apology for the Woman Writing