Universität Potsdam, Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik
Seminar: Britain Meets India in Contemporary Film and Literature
11. Semester

Comparison of Hanif Kureishi´s Short Story and Screenplay “
My Son the Fanatic “

by: Tanja Schwebe

Contents

Introduction

1. Background Information

1.1 Biography
1.2 Historical Overview
1.3 Summary Of The Short Story
1.4 Summary Of The Screenplay

2. Differences And Similarities And Why They Are Put In

3. Conclusion

Literature

Introduction

In the summer - term last year I took the course: “Britain meets India in Contemporary Film and Literature”. It dealt with the works and films of well known writers such as Hanif Kureishi or Salman Rushdie. There were some discussions about the screenplay of “My Son the Fanatic” by Hanif Kureishi, that caught my attention. Besides the fact that the short story and the screenplay are both written by Kureishi, they are different from each other. I decided to take a closer look on both variants and to write a comparison, involving possible reasons for the differences and similarities.

Immigration to Great Britain has always been a topic for discussion, because Indian and Pakistani immigration and its people play a major role in Great Britain’s history and culture of today. For example, Indian restaurants could be found in almost every greater city. Very often engineering students at Britain’s Universities are of Indian or Pakistani origin.

Kureishi involves History, culture and everyday problems of “hybridity” in his works. The story of “My son the Fanatic” deals with a family whose son changes into a “radical”. From everyday life, one’s expectations are, that the parents stick to the old traditions and that the children try to escape that situation. In this story that expectation is turned upside down. The family’s son is the one who remembers the cultural and religious life of a Muslim Pakistani, whereas his father tries everything to adapt to Western living as best as he could. Unfortunately this leads to a complete break-up of the family. Comparing the short story to the screenplay opens up some interesting points of view and it could not be stated clearly, whether the changes are only temporal or a lifelong decision.

In the beginning, I will give a short Biography of Hanif Kureishi; secondly, I will give a short and condensed overview about Indian immigration history to Great Britain. In order to make the differences and similarities more clearly, I will give summaries of the short story and the screenplay. Following, I will compare the works and point out the changes and what reasons there might be for the changes - from my point of view. Finally I will draw a conclusion.

1.1 Biography

Hanif Kureishi was born on December 5th, 1954 in Bromley, England. Still young, he decided to become a writer and started to write novels. Very often the topics of his stories dealt with his experiences of being raised as a Pakistani boy in a Western surrounding. Culture Clash and “feeling in between” influenced his writing. He later studied philosophy at the University of London. He then became writer in residence for the Royal Theatre. In 1976 his first play “Soaking Up the Heat”, was produced. In 1980, ”The Mother Country”, his second play, won the Thames Television Playwright Award.

A play about immigrants in London (“Borderline”) made him famous. Not very much later his play “Outskirts” was performed by London′s Royal Shakespeare Company In 1985 he wrote the screenplay for “My Beautiful Laundrette” with which he made his first successful steps in film business. The Movie won several awards. Five years later he wrote the screenplay for “Sammy and Rosie Get Laid”. In the same year he published his semi - autobiographical novel, “The Buddha of Suburbia”, which won the Whitbread Book of the Year Award. Only one year later Kureishi made his directorial debut with “London Kills Me”. Here he focused on the world of drugs, gangs and homelessness.

Besides other works that he wrote during the years, involving topics such as interracial relations and problems, loneliness, young men of Pakistani origin, who have to choose between a white lover and Muslim friends, he also wrote “My Son the Fanatic”. This short story was published in a short story collection called “Love in a Blue Time” in 1997. In the following year he published his third novel, “Intimacy” and wrote the screenplay for “My Son the Fanatic”, based on the short story. 1999 his play “Sleep with Me“ was produced at the Royal National Theatre. His second collection of short stories, “Midnight All Day” was published the same year in Great Britain in November. ¹

1.2 Historical Overview

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1 Information taken from: http://www.hanifkureishi.com/time.html and http://www.emory.edu/ENGLISH/Bahri/Kureishi.html