ABSTRACT
In chapter 4, I examined the spectre of ‘race’, referring to a number of contemporary writers who engage with its problematic legacy. In a British context, Hanif Kureishi is amongst the most important. Growing up in Bromley, South London, he began his career as a dramatist. Drawing on his own experiences of discrimination as an English boy with a Pakistani father, his professional reputation was built upon his subtle presentations of hardhitting issues like racism, in texts such as the 1981 play Outskirts. That said, however, his texts are far too playful, irreverent and counter-cultural to fit into any orthodox political agenda.
