A tragic accident and a life changed forever

Hanif Kureishi is a playwright, film script writer and author. On Boxing Day in 2022 he was in Rome when he felt faint and toppled from his chair in the restaurant where he was eating. He landed awkwardly on his neck and, as a result of the injury, found himself unable to move any of his limbs and paralysed from the neck downwards. Shattered is the story of his first year in this permanent condition. It’s the author telling us how he now has to come to terms with every personal need having to be dealt with by others and how can do absolutely nothing for himself. It’s a year he spent in hospital in Italy and then in the UK wrestling with the medical and care systems and trying to work out how he can continue his career when he can no longer hold a pen.

The author wrote this book originally as a series of blogs on social media, many of which I read when they were published. He holds nothing back in what he says and he is brutally honest about his sense of hopelessness and how vulnerable he feels, not to mention how it has reconfigured his relationship with his girlfriend and three sons. He writes now by dictating to his son and they edit and review his work together.

The tragic event which happened to this author is similar, in a way, to what happened to Salman Rushdie when he was attacked (the two men know each other) and this book and Rushdie’s memoir Knife were published quite close to one another (read my review of that book here) but where Rushdie writes a lot about the mental anguish and the ethics of the situation Kureishi’s book is more earthy and there is a fair amount about bodily functions and sex.

I have never read or seen anything else written by this author but I have found his writing here to be illuminating. He is very honest about his life and how he feels about things and it is obvious, understandably, that he is very angry about the twist of fate that has left him disabled. You can see that he feels diminished and humiliated as a person and that he has times of despair but that he also can see humour in places where others may not.

This is powerful writing because it comes from the heart. The author is determined that you know how he feels and you share with him in his journey, rejoicing at progress and being saddened by the things that don’t change. At times the book is uplifting but you are left with a feeling of real sadness at the struggle that everyday life has become for him.