BEST AUTHOR BEST : HANIF KUREISHI [1]

 

The novelist and screenwriter blogged throughout the recovery from a spine injury in 2022, a ''diary of distress'' he's edited into the memoir '' Shattered.'' He praises the ''pure genius'' of '' Bleak House '' on audio.

.-  What's the funniest book you've ever read?

Probably ''Joy in the morning,'' by P.G. Wodehouse.

.-  The filthiest?

'' Story of O.''

.-  What's the last great book you read [or listened to]?

In hospital I listened to Miriam Margolyes reading Dickens's '' Bleak House, '' doing all the voices. Pure genius.

.-  What's your favorite book no one else has heard of ?

Edmund Berler's '' The Superego : Unconscious Conscience, the key to the Theory and Therapy of Neurosis.''

.-  What's the best book you've ever received as a gift?

Just before my accident somebody gave me a novel by Andrea Lawlor called '' Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl,'' which I read twice. It's a picaresque set in the early '90s in various American locations and concerns leather bars and gender shifts which are fascinating and very funny.

.-  Lying in a hospital bed can be a good form of shock therapy for a stuck writer,'' you write in '' Shattered.'' Where did getting unstuck take your imagination?

A few days after my accident, while I was in intensive care in Rome, I had a very strong desire to record the story of what was happening to me.

I hadn't felt such a strong impulse to write for a long time. The new form of writing - the blog - suited me very well as a kind of diary of distress. And being able to publish it on Twitter and then on Substack gave me access to a huge responsive audience.

This helped me survive the horror of what I was experiencing.

.-  What subjects do you wish more authors would write about?

With many of them I wish they would write less.

The Publishing continues to Part [2]. The World Students Society thanks The New York Times.