Shattered - by Hanif Kureishi

Book Synopsis

From acclaimed author and playwright Hanif Kureishi comes an urgent and stunning memoir about rebuilding a new life in the wake of devastating physical loss.

In late 2022, in Rome, Hanif Kureishi had a fall. When he came to, he realized he could no longer walk. He could do nothing without the help of others and required constant care in a hospital. So began a yearlong odyssey through the medical systems of Rome and Italy, with the hope of somehow being able to return home to his house in London.

While confined to a series of hospital wards, he felt compelled to write, but being unable to type or hold a pen, he began to dictate to family members the words that formed in his head--thoughts on his medical condition, but also parenthood, immigration, sex, psychoanalysis, and, of course, writing. The result was an extraordinary series of dispatches from his hospital bed: a diary of a life in pieces, recorded with rare honesty, humor, and verve.

Shattered takes these dispatches--edited, expanded, and meticulously interwoven with new writing--and charts both a shattering and a reassembling: a new life born of pain and loss but also animated by new feelings of gratitude, humility, and love.

Review Quotes

"A literary tour de force. . . . Shattered covers the full gamut, leaving us even still wanting more." -- San Francisco Chronicle

"Shattered, a bare, tumultuous memoir of the first year of Kureishi's new life. . . [is] simultaneously the story of his mind's entrapment in his body and his attempt to outrun that restriction with radical transparency. . . . Shattered is akin to a war diary, prizing immediacy above all else."
-- Atlantic

"A candid and frequently affecting account . . . . Mr. Kureishi's road may never lead to a full physical recovery, but he continues to face his rehabilitation with courage and compassion." -- Wall Street Journal

"Offer[s] an unflinching look at Kureishi's affliction. . . . Amid the monotony of hospital routines and physiotherapy sessions, writing becomes Kureishi's anchor: 'I am determined to keep writing, it has never mattered to me more.'"
-- New Yorker ("Briefly Noted")

"Gripping . . . . Shattered is most jarring and captivating when it takes us into the alternate reality of the hospital, where time slows to nearly a standstill and odd rites replace familiar ones. . . . Art should 'frighten, if not alarm.' I am glad this book does." -- Washington Post

"[Kureishi] is good and bracing company on the page. His book is never boring. He offers frank lessons in resilience, about blowing the sparks that are still visible, about ringing the bells that still can ring." -- New York Times

"An awe-inspiring, soul-searing piece of writing, and painfully essential reading." -- Nigella Lawson

"Hanif Kureishi has long been one of the most exciting, irreverent, influential voices of his generation. In this beautiful, moving memoir he deals with personal calamity with wit, unflinching honesty and literary grace. It's an extraordinary achievement." -- Salman Rushdie

"Very moving and often funny . . . There are two surprising things about [Shattered]: the first is that there's no self-pity or self-regard, even if there's a Lear-like fury with the injustice of fate; the second is that it's a love story - love of his partner, his ex-wife, his three sons, his late father and his many friends. "I will make something of this," he says of his experiences. And, with the help of those who love him, he's achieved something altogether remarkable." -- Richard Eyre

"Much is shattered in this remarkable, unsentimental account of a devastating fall, but some things remain perfectly intact. Hanif's humor, talent, curiosity, clarity, and perversity - all are present and correct. I loved it." -- Zadie Smith

"Powerful, harrowing, and utterly absorbing. It will change the way you connect with life--and love." -- Elif Shafak

"The ever-resilient author manages to inject levity and revelatory catharsis into his daunting 'new reality.' . . . Kureishi harrowingly reminds us that it takes just one fall to upend an entire lifetime, forever. [He] refashion[s] his life after an accident--with grace, dignity, and black humor." -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"An admirable account of an arduous journey traversing a dreadful injury, metamorphosis, healing, and acceptance." -- Booklist

"Extraordinary, unique, and unputdownable . . . an exceptional volume as original as Jean-Dominique Bauby's stroke classic The Diving Bell and the Butterfly [and] as profound and affected as Salman Rushdie's Knife . . . This fall provoked a rare, and inspiring, defiance . . . Shattered, with its unique authorship, has become a life-saver. For the reader, this compounds the intensity of its witness." -- Independent (UK)

"A thoroughly compelling, and deeply harrowing, account of Kureishi's life . . . few could write about it with the piercing candor and clarity that Kureishi has done. There is frustration, anger, sometimes despair, but not a trace of self-pity." -- Daily Telegraph (UK)

"Raw and earnest . . . Kureishi's fans will find Shattered wildly inspiring; his singular voice, his bawdy humor, his efforts to create meaning, all so characteristic and moving . . . I can't wait to read everything he has to write." -- Guardian (UK)

"An enthralling report on how a person can be forced to reckon with sudden, shocking change . . . Shattered is its own lifeline, and a neat exemplar of what we mean when we describe a book as 'necessary' its value for readers is at one with its urgency of expression to the human being drowning in the experience it attempts to redeem . . . It's impossible not to read Shattered in a spirit of generosity and communion." -- Observer, "Book of the Day" (UK)

"Darkly funny . . . . Kureishi . . . relates with bracing candor the indignities and psychological anguish associated with the sudden loss of personal autonomy." -- Irish Times

"Shattered is bracingly candid, frequently funny but harrowing too." -- The Sunday Times (UK)

"You'd think a book about a paralyzed man lying in hospital for a year would be bound to be depressing. It never is. Hanif Kureishi is such an exhilarating writer. . . . I've never felt tempted to use the word 'inspirational' about a book, and promise I never will again, but it's the only word I can think of to describe Shattered." -- The Spectator (UK)