Hanif Kureishi reflects on paralysis and resilience in new memoir

The acclaimed novelist chronicles his struggles and recovery after a life-changing accident.

Illustration by Iryna Lupashchenko

By Hayu Andini and Widya Putri

Shattered: A Memoir, by Hanif Kureishi

On December 26, 2022, British novelist and screenwriter Hanif Kureishi suffered a life-altering accident while in Rome with his partner, Isabella. One moment he was seated at a table feeling dizzy, and the next, he was lying motionless on the floor, his neck twisted and his body unresponsive. As he lay in a pool of blood, he believed he was moments away from death. Instead of seeing his life flash before his eyes, his thoughts fixated on what he was losing—the future, the unfinished work, and the experiences he was being robbed of.

The fall left Kureishi quadriplegic, raising doubts about whether he would ever walk or write again. For a writer, losing the ability to use a pen was unfathomable. Determined to continue his craft, he dictated his thoughts to Isabella from his hospital bed in Italy. These diary entries, first shared through an online newsletter, have now been expanded into his memoir, Shattered. The book is an unflinching account of his sudden physical decline and the grueling journey toward rehabilitation in 2023.

A writer’s struggle with immobility

Born in 1954 to a Pakistani father and an English mother, Kureishi rose to fame with the screenplay for My Beautiful Laundrette (1985), a film that explored gay identity and racism in Margaret Thatcher’s Britain. He later gained literary acclaim with his debut novel, The Buddha of Suburbia (1990), a satirical coming-of-age story.

Shattered is unlike anything Kureishi has written before. The memoir follows his experiences in five different hospitals, beginning with emergency surgery on his neck in Rome before he was moved to a spinal injury facility. Months later, he was transferred to London for further treatment. Each transition forced him to adjust to new surroundings and unfamiliar medical teams. His daily life became a series of painful routines—being turned, lifted, and monitored constantly. At one point, he wonders, “How did I go from being a private man to a public piece of meat?”

Despite his resilience, the struggle of being bedbound and dependent on others weighed heavily on Kureishi. He mourned his lost independence, envying those who could perform simple tasks like holding a coffee cup or scratching an itch. The humiliation of being spoon-fed and having his bodily functions managed left him feeling stripped of dignity. Overwhelmed by isolation, he faced depression, insomnia, and thoughts of suicide, admitting, “It would be a relief.”

Finding purpose through writing

Despite the darkness, Shattered is not entirely bleak. Kureishi reflects on his past, his influences, and his lifelong passion for storytelling. He recalls growing up in a mixed British-Indian household, his father’s love for literature, and the writers who shaped his work, from Dostoyevsky to William S. Burroughs.

The memoir is also laced with his signature wit. A nurse once mistook him for Salman Rushdie and asked, “How long did it take you to write Midnight’s Children?” (Rushdie, in reality, wrote to Kureishi daily in the hospital, encouraging him to be patient.) The writer even jokes about his struggles with basic tasks, saying, “Right now, I am a desperate man attempting to open a bag of cashews using only my teeth and a brick wall for purchase.”

While Shattered can be repetitive and fragmented at times, its greatest strength lies in Kureishi’s raw honesty. “This darkness is my truth,” he writes, capturing both his pain and his determination to move forward. Through gratitude for his caregivers and a growing acceptance of his new reality, Kureishi’s journey is one of resilience, proving that even in his most vulnerable moments, he remains an unflinching observer of the human condition.

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