Product Description
The first full evaluation of Hanif Kureishi's artistic development and achievement over the last two decades. This versatile author explores issues of gender and class as well as articulating the British Asian experience, which had previously received scant cultural representation. ... Read more

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Magical realism has become almost synonymous with Latin American fiction, but this way of representing the layered and often contradictory reality of the topsy-turvy, late-capitalist, globalizing world finds equally vivid expression in U.S. multiethnic and British postcolonial literature and film. Writers and filmmakers such as Oscar "Zeta" Acosta, Ana Castillo, Julie Dash, Hanif Kureishi, and Salman Rushdie have made brilliant use of magical realism to articulate the trauma of dislocation and the legacies of colonialism that people of color experience in the postcolonial, multiethnic world. This book seeks to redeem and refine the theory of magical realism in U.S. multiethnic and British postcolonial literature and film. Frederick Aldama engages in theoretically sophisticated readings of Ana Castillo's So Far from God, Oscar "Zeta" Acosta's Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo, Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children, Shame, The Satanic Verses, and The Moor's Last Sigh, Julie Dash's Daughters of the Dust, and Stephen Frears and Hanif Kureishi's Sammy and Rosie Get Laid. Coining the term "magicorealism" to characterize these works, Aldama not only creates a postethnic critical methodology for enlarging the contact zone between the genres of novel, film, and autobiography, but also shatters the interpretive lens that traditionally confuses the transcription of the real world, where truth and falsity apply, with narrative modes governed by other criteria. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Magical Realism
Magical realism has long been associated with Latin American literature and film.Aldama (University of Colorado, Boulder) examines its connections to other cultures as well.In five chapters, plus an introductory discussion of terminology and a coda, he emphasizes the need for precision in distinguishing between aesthetics and ontology while analyzing the films of Dash and Kureishi, the novels of Rushdie, and the Chicano/a narratives of Acosta and Castillo.Aldama posits the importance of storytelling techniques: parody, mimesis-as-play, rebellion, self-reflexivity, and the subaltern voice of the trickster/picaro.Citing such authors as Cervantes and Garcia Marquez as models, he stresses the need for imaginative writers and artists to question the effects of globalizatoin and consumptoin in the modern world.Joining a literature that includes Aldama's edited volume Arturo Islas: The Uncollected Works (2003) and related studes by such critics as Seymour Menton and Edward Said, this thought-provoking analysis should inspire further inquiry and discussion.Summing up: Recommended-all libaries serving upper-division undergraduates and above.Essential-researchers in the fields of comparative literature and film.
CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries

Fascinating Study
I've just finished reading this nuanced and rich study of magical realism and finally understand not only how it differs from realism and the fantastic, but also how the make-believe of fiction has been confused with real facts that enable real politics. An excellent book for scholars and creative writers alike.

A valuable contribution to an important field.
This book is a must for serious scholars working on magic realism, postcolonialism, American multiethnic literature, andglobalization.Aldama begins by offering a helpful overview of the critics who have observed and theorized magic realism (or magicorealism, as he dubs it).Even more usefully, he interrogates those theories, explains his own fresh take on the subject, and trains his critical lens specifically and in depth on a spectrum of magic realist works of fiction and film--somealready canonical, some just beginning to come under academic scrutiny.Though written in a complex and theoretically sophisticated style, this book is appropriate for advanced undergraduates.A valuable contribution to an important field.

A poorly re-written dissertation on a much debated topic
This book can only be convincing to those who have no knowledge of the long and by now tedious debate concerning Magical Realism in the field of Latin American literature. What some reviewers call his "innovative" posture is actually based on one of the most conservative and oldest understandings of Magical Realism, Seymore Menton's, articulated in the 1960s. He basically skips over the latest and best criticism by Latin Americanists concerning Magical Realism. He brushes off complex and interesting arguments made by Alberto Moreiras in the space of one paragraph. There is no mention of Moses Valdez who also has written a serious scholarly essay on the topic. Aldama dismisses without confronting in any sustained way the monumental anthology on Magical Realism put out by Lois Parkinson Zamora in recent years. He creates the neologism "magicorealism" or "magicoreelism" (when talking about film) but gives no substantial critical reason for the creation of these terms; At least not one that coherently distinguishes it from any myriad of definitions already available and used when talking about the old term "Magical Realism". There is a lot of confusing argumentation and a lot of neat sounding words that may confuse and convince those who don't know any better of the "greatness" of his argument. However there is nothing here of any real substance. It is little more than a barely re-written dissertation (his dissertation was on a similar topic) that some how made it into press at UT Austin. For any one interested I direct them to Menton's monumental work on the topic, followed by Moreiras, and then the Parkinson Zamora anthology and Moses Valdez's article. All of these people are conversant in the topic, they write in a way that is, for the most part clear and interesting in terms of the theoretical debate.

Editorial Reviews
Book Description: Magical realism has become almost synonymous with Latin American fiction, but this way of representing the layered and often contradictory reality of the topsy-turvy, late-capitalist, globalizing world finds equally vivid expression in U.S. multiethnic and British postcolonial literature and film. Writers and filmmakers such as Oscar "Zeta" Acosta, Ana Castillo, Julie Dash, Hanif Kureishi, and Salman Rushdie have made brilliant use of magical realism to articulate the trauma of dislocation and the legacies of colonialism that people of color experience in the postcolonial, multiethnic world. This book seeks to redeem and refine the theory of magical realism in U.S. multiethnic and British postcolonial literature and film. The author engages in theoretically sophisticated readings of Ana Castillo's So Far from God, Oscar "Zeta" Acost's Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo, Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children, Shame, The Satanic Verses, and The Moor's Last Sigh, Julie Dash's Daughters of the Dust, and Stephen Frears and Hanif Kureishi's Sammy and Rosie Get Laid. Coining the term "magicorealism" to characterize these works, Aldama not only creates a postethnic critical methodology for enlarging the contact zone between the genres of novel, film, and autobiography, but also shatters the interpretive lens that traditionally confuses the transcription of the real world, where truth and falsity apply, with narrative modes governed by other criteria.

Reviews:
"In this exciting new book, Frederick Luis Aldama has done an outstanding job of remapping 'magical realism"--Werner Sollors, Henry B. and Anne M. Cabot Professor of English Literature and Professor of Afro-American Studies, Harvard University.

"Frederick Luis Aldama offers a vigorous revisionary perspective on postcolonial literature and, more specifically, on the much discussed phenomenon of magicorealism. He has a commanding knowledge of postcolonial theory, and he performs a welcome critical task in demonstrating how it tends to confuse the confines of the academy with the contours of the real world, textuality with ontology. Aldama himself is a political critic, but he sanely argues that the arena of any serious politics is the world of living people and not a text"--Robert Alter, Professor of Comparative Literature, University of California at Berkeley and author of Canon and Creativity.

"Providing a lucid and cogent critique of the tendency in contemporary criticism to ontologize "magical realism," a tendency that implicitly articulates a relatively simple mimetic relationship between "magical realism" and various postcolonial cultures, Frederick Aldama instead posits a theory of what he calls "rebellious mimetics" that introduces a complex aesthetic and political mediation in that relationship. In doing so, he weaves together a series of excellent analyses of novels and films by authors and artists as diverse as Salman Rushdie, Ana Castillio, Oscar Zeta Acosta, Julie Dash, and Hanif Kureishi. This is a very significant contribution to the study of this genre"--Abdul R. JanMohamed, Professor of English, University of California, Berkeley.

"In this insightful and forceful study of magical realism, Aldama successfully argues that a true postethnic and postcolonial criticism should not (con)fuse the world with the text. His commentaries on Castillo, Dash, Kureishi, Acosta, and Rushdie force the readers to see these artists' magicorealist works in a new light, thus revealing all of their splendid and contradictory complexities. Aldama's book is a must for anyone who wishes to understand the intricacies of magical realism and the vitality of this genre in contemporary European postcolonial and ethnic American literature and scholarship"--Emilio Bejel, Professor of Spanish American Literature, University of Colorado at Boulder and author of Gay Cuban Nation.

"Through a study of the playful narrative techniques of writers and film-makers such as Dash, Garcia Marquez, Rushdie and Kureishi, Frederick Luis Aldama offers a powerful critique of those who view magical realism as either a means toward postcolonial resistance or as a depiction of some exotic real world. Proposing a "postethnic" approach, Aldama argues convincingly that a reader's or viewer's understanding of the aesthetic dimensions of what he calls "magicorealism" can lead to greater political understanding than older, more ideologically oriented interpretations"--Herbert Lindenberger, Avalon Professor of Humanities, Emeritus, Stanford University.

"It is rare that we come across a truly great book, one in which fierce intelligence asserts itself in pages that truly matter. Such a book assigns us the task of reordering what we have taken as true on the promise of an understanding more profound. In such a book, we are guided by extraordinary vision, by an author with keen insight. In the rarest of occasions, we read words that are wise, words that make broad connection and interrogate a range of thought that afterwards we deem necessary. Postethnic Narrative Criticism is such a book; Frederick Aldama is such an author"--Alfred Arteaga, Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies, University of California, Berkeley.

This work offers a highly valuable rethinking of magical realism, one that assesses previous work in new ways, one that extends the historical reach of arguments about magical realism, and one that brings a new level of sophistication to arguments about it"--Carl Guitierrez-Jones, Professor and Chair, University of California, Santa Barbara. ... Read more

Product Description
The protagonist of this novel is a 15-year-old North London schoolboy called Gabriel. He is forced to come to terms with a new life, and use his gift for painting in order to make sense of his world, once the equilibrium of the family has been shattered by his father's departure. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Gabriel's Gift
The protagonist of Hanif Kureishi's delightful novel is Gabriel, a fifteen-year-old London schoolboy trying to come to terms with a new life, after the equilibrium of his family home has been shattered bt the ousting of his father.

Fending for himself, as well as providing emotional support to his confused (and confusing) parents, Gabriel is forced to grow up quickly. The only support he can draw upon is from his remembered twin brother, Archie, and from his own 'gift', which is accompanied by sensations that urge him inti areas of life requiring the utmost courage and faith. A chance visit to seventies rock star Lester Jones crystallizes the turbulent emotions inside Gabriel, and helps him to recognize and engage with his gift.
--- from book's back cover
... Read more

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The script of the screenplay My Beautiful Laundrette, which received an Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay in 1984. Includes other screenplays and journalistic pieces. ... Read more

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My Beautiful Laundrette and The Rainbow Sign
Hanif Kureishi is one of a new generation of British writers whose experience of the United Kingdom is refracted, socially and culturally, through his Pakistani heritage.

My Beautiful Laundrette brings together the script of Hanif Kureishi's recent award-winning film with a long autobiographical on the nature of the Pakistani experience, The Rainbow Sign.
--- from book's back cover ... Read more

Product Description
A superb collection of screenplays and essays from the celebrated screenwriter of My Beautiful Laundrette and Sammy and Rosie Get Laid. This work includes the title screenplay, the scripts for his previous screenplays, and essays about the background of each film, the shooting and editing process, and the hilarity of the Academy Awards in Hollywood. ... Read more

Product Description
This is a collection of Kureishi's most controversial and though-provoking writing on the gulf between fundamentalist Islam and Western values. Over the past 10 years, Hanif Kureishi has charted the gradual widening of the gulf between fundamentalist Islam and Western values. Starting with "The Black Album", Kureishi portrayed the ongoing argument between Islam and Western liberal values, between Islamic certainty and Western rational scepticism. By the time he was writing the short story, "My Son The Fanatic", the break was complete - there was no longer any attempt by the fundamentalists to find any common ground with Western culture. The outbreak of the Iraq war and its aftermath, plus the recent bombings in London, have stimulated Kureishi to write further about this great divide between the East and the West, and this volume collects Kureishi's writings from the past 10 years which have dealt with this subject, charting Islam's disengagement from dialogue with the West. The volume also contains a new piece, written especially for this book, which brings Kureishi's analysis of the situation right up to date. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Why Bomb?
Why Bomb? Why Moslem?
This will irritate them. only few of them who did that. and millions of others are peaceful. Kureishi's works are sensational. But his works miss point of moderate Moslem (cf. dewi candraningrum soekirno's review).

As a Moslem, why Hanif do not explore the beautiful side of Islam as a religion. I really want to read it. ... Read more

Product Description
In Hanif Kureishi's latest play-his first new work for the stage since the 1980s-the century is drawing to a close and the middle-aged media barons and their acolytes have come together in the English countryside in yet another attempt to find meaning in lives filled with work, boredom, and sex. In recounting the casual deceptions and random couplings that make up the center of their existence, Stephen, Charles, Lorraine, Julie, Russell, Sophie, and Barry find that the lack of real engagement that characterizes their work somehow makes it impossible for them to connect later as human beings. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Lack of in-depth characterisation and dramatic action
Kureishi aims at writing a story in which the characters confuse each other with sexual desire and also, most importantly, the true nature of love. And, honestly speaking, it is quite a hard plot to deal with, especially in drama. Owing to the limitation on not writing everything explicitly in words, the story depends on dialogues to tell the readers the chaotic romance within the story. The book I have read so far, which can successfully deal with such a difficult plot is however, a gay novel - Larry Kramer's Faggots. Sleep with me has a potentially good and intriguing plot; however, there are not enough actions to dramatise the chaos. In other words, the chaos are not chaotic enough. The story is there. It happens by itself. It fails to pull the readers into the core of the drama. Finally, when you close the book, you will realise that something has happened, but nothing's changed. ... Read more

Product Description
Long before Islamic fundamentalism became a household phrase, Hanif Kureishi began visiting mosques in London and witnessing the flocks of young Asians -- many of them second-generation immigrants -- who were turning to Islam. Kureishi was perplexed by these young people, brought up in secular Britain but intent on choosing a strict religious code that denied them the pleasures of the society in which they lived.

First published in 1995, The Black Album is Kureishi's raucous, exuberant, and prophetic examination of this new phenomenon. His protagonist Shahid, from a Pakistani immigrant family, is perilously fond of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll. A student at a dismal community college in London, he wants to please the conservative Muslims in the flat next door but is enthralled by the gorgeous Deedee Osgood, a radical, hard-partying college professor with a penchant for sex in taxis.

Also included in this new edition of The Black Album is "My Son the Fanatic," Kureishi's brilliant short story, published in The New Yorker and made into an award-winning film. "My Son the Fanatic" reveals the shifting values between a father and son -- two generations of immigrants struggling between assimilation and separatist fundamentalism.

Available together for the first time, The Black Album and "My Son the Fanatic" are more timely and relevant than ever -- exhilarating and prescient writing from one of the most celebrated voices in British fiction and film. ... Read more

Product Description
Religion is for the benefit of the masses, not for brain-box types like you. Those simpletons require strict rules for living, otherwise they would still think the earth sits on three fishes. But you mind-wallahs must know it's a lot of balls. An Asian kid from Kent goes to college in London and teams up with a sympathetic group of anti-racists. But it's 1989, the year of the fatwa, and as Shahid begins a hedonistic affair with his lecturer, his radical Muslim friends want to steer him away from the decadence of the West. We're not blasted Christians. We don't turn the other buttock. We will fight for our people who are being tortured anywhere - in Palestine, Afghanistan, Kashmir, East End! Hanif Kureishi's witty stage adaptation of his strikingly prescient and acclaimed novel, "The Black Album", humorously considers how the events of 1989 have shaped today's world, where fundamentalism battles liberalism. A co-production with Tara Arts, "The Black Album" premiered at the National Theatre, London, in July 2009. ... Read more

Product Description
This title contains a collection of the screenplays written by Hanif Kureishi. The plays include, "Sammy and Rosie Get Laid", "London Kills Me" and "My Son the Fanatic". ... Read more