This event is part of the Asia House Bagri Foundation Literature Festival 2019. #AsiaLitFest

‘If you don’t know anything until afterwards, ‘What Happened?’ is the writer’s fundamental question, where one starts to seek the words which might surround the baffling and exciting mess of existence. We are what has disturbed us, and we return repeatedly to it, with some hope of mastery at last, saying the unsayable, turning accidents into stories.’ Hanif Kureishi

We are delighted to welcome Hanif Kureishi back to Asia House with What Happened? - the author's new collection of comic, dark and insightful essays and fiction.

From social media to the ancient classics; from appraisals of David Bowie to Georges Simenon to Keith Jarrett; from ice cream to Netflix: this volume of criticism and short stories is the latest event in a unique body of literature. What Happened? is as much about the fact of Kureishi’s catholic appetite for popular culture as his observations and insights themselves – any new book in his oeuvre represents cause for celebration. Youth, discovery, pop culture, rebellion, sex, art, race and immigrant experience are packed into this thrilling collection, which speaks to Hanif’s abiding creative interests and spirit, and will entertain and provoke in equal measure. Kureishi will be in conversation with Boyd Tonkin.

This event includes an audience Q&A. Kureishi will also be signing copies of the book.

About Hanif Kureishi

Hanif Kureishi grew up in Kent and studied philosophy at King’s College London. His novels include The Buddha of Suburbia, which won the Whitbread Prize for Best First Novel, The Black Album, Intimacy, The Last Word and The Nothing. His screenplays include My Beautiful Laundrette, which received an Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay, Sammy and Rosie Get Laid and Le Week-End. He has also published several collections of short stories. Kureishi has been awarded the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, the PEN/Pinter Prize, and is a Commander of the Order of the British Empire. His work has been translated into thirty-six languages. He is professor of Creative Writing at Kingston University.

About Boyd Tonkin

Boyd Tonkin is an journalist, author and critic, and special adviser to The International Booker Prize (which he chaired in 2016). He writes on literature and arts for international media including The Economist, The Financial Times, The Times, New Scientist and the New York Review of Books Daily. His reader’s guide to global fiction, The Hundred Best Novels in Translation, was published in 2018, and in paperback in June 2019. From 1996 to 2016, he was Literary Editor and then Senior Writer at The Independent in London, where he re-founded the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and judged it until its merger with the Man Booker International Prize. He is a Trustee of the Orwell Foundation, reviews music and opera for theartsdesk.com, and is associate editor of the journal Critical Muslim.

This event is part of the Asia House Bagri Foundation Literature Festival 2019. Back for its 13th year running, the Festival is bringing some of the biggest names and rising stars from the written word together for a celebration of Asian literature.

Taking place from September to November 2019, the UK’s only pan-Asian literature festival presents words, stories and ideas from Asia and the diaspora. From live performances to public talks and animated discussions, the festival will celebrate Asia – a region that we define as running from Turkey to Tokyo – in all its glory.

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