Hanif Kureishi

When I was growing up, the idea of anyone writing about my life, or about people like me, was inconceivable. Asians, and particularly those who had migrated to or grown up in Britain, were a kind of anti-subject matter.

We were seen as dowdy and provincial. We spoke in accents that no cool teenager would ever copy. We were invisible, not just to the outside world but to ourselves. We needed someone to show us that we existed.

That person was Hanif Kureishi.

Sukhdev Sandhu meets Hanif Kureishi, in The Telegraph (free registration required).