My Ear At His Heart

A remarkable insight into the birth of a writer; and the moving discovery of family secrets. When Hanif Kureishi discovers an abandoned manuscript of his father's his understanding of the family history is transformed. So begins a journey which takes Kureishi through his father's privileged childhood by the sea in Bombay; to the trauma of partition and to his adult life hidden away in the suburbs of Bromley - his days spent as a minor functionary in the Pakistan embassy in London; his nights writing prose; hopeful of one day receiving literary recognition. This is a book about his father's failed career as a writer and the beginnings of Kureishi's successful career as one - as his father looks on with pride and perhaps envy.