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Hanif Kureishi Wonders What Dostoyevsky’s Characters Did in Bed
Life took a sudden, terrible turn when the prolific novelist and screenwriter suffered catastrophic spine damage in late 2022. In an email interview, he described how blogging “helped me survive.” SCOTT HELLER How do you organize your books? I have a …
Life took a sudden, terrible turn when the prolific novelist and screenwriter suffered catastrophic spine damage in late 2022. In an email interview, he described how blogging “helped me survive.” SCOTT HELLER
How do you organize your books?
I have a vague idea of where everything is, though I have spent whole afternoons looking for particular volumes. Since my accident, when I became tetraplegic, I am unable to access my library at all or open a physical copy of any book.
What kind of reader were you as a child?
I read a tremendous amount: adventure stories, school stories, biographies of sportsmen and, later, the European classics, which my father had in his library. I am surprised by how little I remember. It’s all gone, except for a memory of pleasure which never leaves me.
What’s the last great book you read (or listened to)?
In hospital I listened to Miriam Margolyes reading Dickens’s “Bleak House,” doing all the voices. Pure genius.
What’s the funniest book you’ve ever read?
Probably “Joy in the Morning,” by P.G. Wodehouse.
The filthiest?
“Story of O.”
What’s your favorite book no one else has heard of?
Edmund Bergler’s “The Superego: Unconscious Conscience, the Key to the Theory and Therapy of Neurosis.”
