The enigma of abandonment: re-thinking the importance of Hanif Kureishi's work for multiculturalism

Abstract

Critics have often attempted to emphasize Hanif Kureishi’s importance for debates about multiculturalism by endowing his work with representational status; he has, variously, been labelled a ‘British Asian’, a ‘postcolonial’, an ’ethnic’, and a ‘post-ethnic’ writer. This has often led to a failure to recognize the multiplicity of his writing and to engage fully with its complexities. Indeed, criticism of Kureishi has often been at its most confused when it has attempted to account for his entire oeuvre, and there has been much anxiety over the issue of who or what his writing finally ‘represents’. Critically examining the theoretical contexts within which Kureishi has been read, this chapter argues that it is not productive to think of him as a ‘representative’ writer of any sort. It explores the notion of abandonment in Kureishi’s work, theorizing it as a new means of understanding the importance of his writing for contemporary debates about multiculturalism.