The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi

Recommended by Mr Harris

The Buddha of Suburbia is a novel that speaks to a seemingly bygone era, one in which racial slurs are commonplace, homosexuality is seen as a disability, and rubbish bins line the streets. It’s easy to forget just how recent the 1980s were, yet the novel’s prescient handling of race and class in post-war Britain perfectly encapsulates the anxieties found in a (self-presenting) post-colonial society and so the novel’s message feels just as relevant now as it was 30 years ago. 

The bildungsroman format of the novel ties these anxieties around cultural belonging and acceptance to a more widely understood teenage desire for social acceptance. What emerges is a post-colonial Portnoy’s Complaint, filled with stories of teenage sexual angst and desire as the novel’s central narrator, Karim, navigates the turbulent social landscape of 70s and 80s Britain, a period defined by the competing dialects of sexual and social liberation and Thatcherism.

Central to the novel’s narrative is Karim’s relationship with his father, Haroon. The eponymous ‘Buddha of Suburbia’ is a character caught in the liminal space between ‘Indian’ and ‘British’. He seems actively to rebel against the traditions of his birthplace, marrying a white woman and rejecting his Islamic upbringing, and yet his obsession with mysticism suggests a refusal to fully Anglicise. What we soon discover is that Haroon and Karim are navigating this complicated world of romance, culture and religion together, beautifully articulated in Haroon’s words to his son, ‘And I like having you with me, boy. I love you very much. We’re growing up together, we are.’

Roshan Seth as Haroon and Naveen Andrews as Karim in the BBC's 1993 adaptation of The Buddha of Suburbia

Yet this is not a book that avoids controversy. In a world that was so bereft of Asian representation, British Asian responses to the novel were largely negative, suggesting that Kureishi’s presentation of their/his culture was demeaning. In fact, Kureishi, in typically tongue-in-cheek manner, responds to these criticisms within the book itself, encapsulated in this brilliant piece of dialogue. When Karim’s uncle goes on hunger-strike after his daughter (Jammie/Jamila) refuses an arranged marriage, his girlfriend is unable to understand the situation:

“I quickly said no and asked Jammie if I could tell Helen what was happening.
‘Yes, if you want to expose our culture as being ridiculous, and our people as old-fashioned, extreme and narrow.’
So I told Helen about the hunger-strike.”

Writer Hanif Kureishi

I hope that when you read the text you will realise that it is not the British Asian community that he finds ridiculous, nor the British Caucasian community, but the definition of community as a whole. The anxieties around representation are clearly there, and they are obviously felt in a meaningful way, but Kureishi deals with human beings. Human beings who are complicated, stubborn, emotional, problematic. Human beings who are not the representatives of their nation, culture or anything other than themselves, and so despite the problems of representation he treats them as such. It is with this eye he observes them, fleshes them out, and gives them life; and though they may challenge you, they will certainly make you think.