‘Shattered’: British-Pakistani writer Hanif Kureishi’s memoir is a testament to exemplary courage

A fall rendered British-Pakistani screenwriter, filmmaker, and novelist Hanif Kureishi “divorced” from his body. Last January, on X, he posted, “I then experienced what can only be described a scooped, semicircular object with talons attached scuttling towards me. Using what was left of my reason, I saw this was my hand, an uncanny object over which I had no agency.”

While most people would’ve given in to their fate, Kureishi summoned himself to make sense of his disability by writing on Substack, with the help of his partner Isabella and sons. Shattered: A Memoir is a compilation of those entries and dispatches, which have been “revised, expanded and edited” by his son, Carlo, for the present book form.

Not a ‘complete break’

The edited post from the introductory paragraph opens the book and paves the way to a meaningful reflection of life – “everything [Kureishi] was being robbed of, all the things [he] wanted to do.” A loss of control over one’s abilities naturally depresses one. Kureishi was no different. Structured on his movements from one hospital to another, both in Italy and in the UK, the book, which is almost completely in the form of diary entries from January 6, 2023, through December 26, 2003, highlights how...

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