In addition, “Hanif Kureishi grew up experiencing first-hand the racial and cultural clashes that he addresses in most of his work.

Both Hanif and Amir also had fathers who were Pakistani immigrants and mothers who were English, which made both of them half-Indian and half-English.Īnother parallel between Hanif and Amir is that both of their parents got divorced when they were teenagers. Here, they grew up and went to school during the 1960s and 1970s. Hanif and Amir were both born in Bromley, Kent, which is a suburb in London, England, in 1954. Hanif and Amir’s lives were very similar growing up for a number of reasons, as “Kureishi's first novel was the semi-autobiographical The Buddha of Suburbia, published in 1990“ (Smith). When Jamila has a baby with Simon, one of the men in the house, Changez cares for the baby as though she's his own.Hanif Kureishi and Karim Amir will be forever joined because of the personal similarities that they share with one another. Changez's unwavering love for Jamila means he's perfectly happy to follow her into a communal living situation. As the novel progresses, Karim watches Changez and Jamila's marriage slowly become more respectful. He initially tries to keep this a secret, but Shinko and Jamila eventually become friends, much to Changez's embarrassment.

To deal with his frustration, Changez hires a Japanese sex worker, Shinko. He admires her openly and desperately wants to have children with her, and becomes extremely frustrated when it becomes apparent that that won't happen. Changez respects her wishes to not consummate their marriage and sleeps separately from her for the duration of the novel. Karim marvels at watching Changez fall in love with Jamila. He and Karim soon become good friends, as Karim finds Changez easy to bully. He spends his days reading and walking around London with Karim. Despite all of this, Changez is generally cheerful. While Anwar wanted a strapping young man capable of working in his grocery store and providing him grandchildren, Changez is fat, has only one working arm, doesn't care to work, and Jamila refuses to have sex with him. Though he came highly recommended by one of Anwar's cousins in Bombay, Changez defies all expectations.

The buddha of suburbia novel