Comments on: Hanif Kureishi: One of a Kind? http://sepiamutiny.com/blog/2008/08/14/hanif_kureishi/ All that flavorful brownness in one savory packet Sat, 30 Nov 2013 11:11:28 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Bobby http://sepiamutiny.com/blog/2008/08/14/hanif_kureishi/comment-page-1/#comment-212749 Bobby Mon, 18 Aug 2008 13:32:40 +0000 http://sepiamutiny.com?p=5340#comment-212749 <p>Rajiv, there really is pressure from publishers, journalists, publicists, to cast individual authors as 'bringers of news' and be representative of an entire group. These pressures come from the industry and readership and a media hungry for certain kinds of narratives, and certain kinds of 'representative authors'. It is a dual dynamic -- some sub-standard writers get published by this route, and the industry, and many readers, reflecting the tendencies and pressures of wider society, seek out this kind of status. It doesn't just happen to desi writers, it happens to writers of every diaspora background.</p> <p>The suitable response to this should be a big F**k You from author to suggestor.</p> Rajiv, there really is pressure from publishers, journalists, publicists, to cast individual authors as ‘bringers of news’ and be representative of an entire group. These pressures come from the industry and readership and a media hungry for certain kinds of narratives, and certain kinds of ‘representative authors’. It is a dual dynamic — some sub-standard writers get published by this route, and the industry, and many readers, reflecting the tendencies and pressures of wider society, seek out this kind of status. It doesn’t just happen to desi writers, it happens to writers of every diaspora background.

The suitable response to this should be a big F**k You from author to suggestor.

]]> By: Rajiv http://sepiamutiny.com/blog/2008/08/14/hanif_kureishi/comment-page-1/#comment-212714 Rajiv Mon, 18 Aug 2008 05:42:55 +0000 http://sepiamutiny.com?p=5340#comment-212714 <p>The biggest problem that so many authors face today is that they try to generically portray the South Asian immigrant experience, which, as has already been expressed, is pretty near impossible. It's somewhat unproductive to expect an author to serve as the voice of a community (Jhumpa Lahiri has made this pretty clear in interviews). I think the expectation of accurate representation is a burden that is unnecessary, and is rarely placed on Caucasian authors. Many of the most successful diasporic novels are those that resist the notion of a mainstream diasporic experience, like The Inheritance of Loss or the recent novel Evening is the Whole Day (in my opinion). Just my two cents...</p> The biggest problem that so many authors face today is that they try to generically portray the South Asian immigrant experience, which, as has already been expressed, is pretty near impossible. It’s somewhat unproductive to expect an author to serve as the voice of a community (Jhumpa Lahiri has made this pretty clear in interviews). I think the expectation of accurate representation is a burden that is unnecessary, and is rarely placed on Caucasian authors. Many of the most successful diasporic novels are those that resist the notion of a mainstream diasporic experience, like The Inheritance of Loss or the recent novel Evening is the Whole Day (in my opinion). Just my two cents…

]]> By: Bobby http://sepiamutiny.com/blog/2008/08/14/hanif_kureishi/comment-page-1/#comment-212687 Bobby Mon, 18 Aug 2008 02:28:04 +0000 http://sepiamutiny.com?p=5340#comment-212687 <blockquote>Really? Is that what life "really was" for immigrants at that time?</blockquote> <p>Yeah. Rachel Donadio says so. All immigrant life and experience is / was reducible to that. Amazing eh.</p> <p>Seriously, Kureishi is such an old complacent fart. Stop hero worshipping him, people.</p> Really? Is that what life “really was” for immigrants at that time?

Yeah. Rachel Donadio says so. All immigrant life and experience is / was reducible to that. Amazing eh.

Seriously, Kureishi is such an old complacent fart. Stop hero worshipping him, people.

]]> By: Bobby http://sepiamutiny.com/blog/2008/08/14/hanif_kureishi/comment-page-1/#comment-212686 Bobby Mon, 18 Aug 2008 02:25:29 +0000 http://sepiamutiny.com?p=5340#comment-212686 <p>I'm bored of Kureishi now, he is yesterdays man. Yes, Buddha of Suburbia was refreshing, but re-reading it now it is incredible how flat the language is.</p> <p>Ravi, I think you're simplifying British Indian diaspora experience. As varied as you say the American diaspora is, so is the Anglo desi experience. No one writer can represent this, that is the fallacy that white journalists, critics and publishers come out with when they seek to anoint single writers as spokespeople for a group.</p> I’m bored of Kureishi now, he is yesterdays man. Yes, Buddha of Suburbia was refreshing, but re-reading it now it is incredible how flat the language is.

Ravi, I think you’re simplifying British Indian diaspora experience. As varied as you say the American diaspora is, so is the Anglo desi experience. No one writer can represent this, that is the fallacy that white journalists, critics and publishers come out with when they seek to anoint single writers as spokespeople for a group.

]]> By: tash http://sepiamutiny.com/blog/2008/08/14/hanif_kureishi/comment-page-1/#comment-212665 tash Sun, 17 Aug 2008 06:35:01 +0000 http://sepiamutiny.com?p=5340#comment-212665 <p>Yeah, Ravi. HAWT post!</p> <p>ps crack up at Evil Abhi calling Ravi a "young fool." You already getting your Uncle Blogger voice on, Abhi? Keep those Obama texts coming.</p> Yeah, Ravi. HAWT post!

ps crack up at Evil Abhi calling Ravi a “young fool.” You already getting your Uncle Blogger voice on, Abhi? Keep those Obama texts coming.

]]> By: My Beautiful Stereotype http://sepiamutiny.com/blog/2008/08/14/hanif_kureishi/comment-page-1/#comment-212585 My Beautiful Stereotype Fri, 15 Aug 2008 22:43:19 +0000 http://sepiamutiny.com?p=5340#comment-212585 <blockquote>With <b>nudity, gay sex, Pakistani businessmen cheating on their wives and a drug smuggler disguised as a mullah with heroin sewn into his fake beard</b>, the film wasn’t just a wake-up call to white Britain; it also flew in the face of the traditional immigrant narrative. “Why are you showing us such filth?” Sandhu’s father asked him. “My father was right to be appalled,” Sandhu wrote. “The film celebrated precisely those things — irony, youth, family instability, sexual desire — that he most feared.” It taught his father, Sandhu added, “that he could not control the future. And <b>control — over their wives, their children, their finances — was what Asian immigrants like him coveted</b>.”</blockquote> <blockquote>Perhaps most importantly, the writings were not staid nor politically correct - <b>they showed life as it really was for immigrants</b> and their children:</blockquote> <p>Really? Is that what life "really was" for immigrants at that time?</p> With nudity, gay sex, Pakistani businessmen cheating on their wives and a drug smuggler disguised as a mullah with heroin sewn into his fake beard, the film wasn’t just a wake-up call to white Britain; it also flew in the face of the traditional immigrant narrative. “Why are you showing us such filth?” Sandhu’s father asked him. “My father was right to be appalled,” Sandhu wrote. “The film celebrated precisely those things — irony, youth, family instability, sexual desire — that he most feared.” It taught his father, Sandhu added, “that he could not control the future. And control — over their wives, their children, their finances — was what Asian immigrants like him coveted.”
Perhaps most importantly, the writings were not staid nor politically correct – they showed life as it really was for immigrants and their children:

Really? Is that what life “really was” for immigrants at that time?

]]> By: Neale http://sepiamutiny.com/blog/2008/08/14/hanif_kureishi/comment-page-1/#comment-212574 Neale Fri, 15 Aug 2008 20:11:49 +0000 http://sepiamutiny.com?p=5340#comment-212574 <p>One more reason why multiculturism is well entrenched in London S&R v/s S&R GL. And I think London != UK. So, maybe we are waiting for the NY desi writer.</p> One more reason why multiculturism is well entrenched in London S&R v/s S&R GL. And I think London != UK. So, maybe we are waiting for the NY desi writer.

]]> By: SK http://sepiamutiny.com/blog/2008/08/14/hanif_kureishi/comment-page-1/#comment-212561 SK Fri, 15 Aug 2008 17:36:34 +0000 http://sepiamutiny.com?p=5340#comment-212561 <p>Lovely post! Oh, to have more time to respond...</p> Lovely post! Oh, to have more time to respond…

]]> By: traderjanki http://sepiamutiny.com/blog/2008/08/14/hanif_kureishi/comment-page-1/#comment-212556 traderjanki Fri, 15 Aug 2008 15:17:10 +0000 http://sepiamutiny.com?p=5340#comment-212556 <p>lovely post, ravi!</p> lovely post, ravi!

]]> By: Harbeer http://sepiamutiny.com/blog/2008/08/14/hanif_kureishi/comment-page-1/#comment-212549 Harbeer Fri, 15 Aug 2008 11:36:41 +0000 http://sepiamutiny.com?p=5340#comment-212549 <p><i>13 · <b>desi londoner</b> <a href="http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/005340.html#comment212548">said</a></i></p> <blockquote>i don't feel as a hindu that i have a place in the uk anymore.</blockquote> <p><i><a href="http://www.lyricsdepot.com/the-clash/something-about-england.html">They say immigrants steal the hubcaps Of the respected gentlemen They say it would be wine an' roses If England were for Englishmen again<</a>/i></p> 13 · desi londoner said

i don’t feel as a hindu that i have a place in the uk anymore.

They say immigrants steal the hubcaps Of the respected gentlemen They say it would be wine an’ roses If England were for Englishmen again< /i>

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