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lost and found at tiny thing
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hanif kureishi says
Fame and a changing Britain have dulled the effects, but, he says, suddenly furious, "I had a lot of racism last fucking week. I'm not used to it any more. I was in Germany. I was incandescent. All the journalists referred to me as an immigrant writer. They'd go, 'As an immigrant writer, are you beginning to feel a bit more settled now in England?' Stuff like that . . . And also - 'The children, are they between two cultures, how do they feel?' There are no more English boys than my sons."
Racism made him a frightened, hostile child, and it made him a writer; the incidents in Germany were "like a memory of a trauma. You remember what other people's words do to you. So if someone calls you an immigrant, you think, oh, it's like 1966. Other people's words define, exclude and generally demean you. It made me remember why I wanted to write - to put my side."
interview in the guardian
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