After the fall

He was known for taboobusting, transgressive stories about identity, sexuality and belonging. Then Hanif Kureishi broke his neck. Despite a lifechanging injury, he's still every bit as provocative

- Simon Hattenstone

'IT WASN'T EVEN PISSED," Hanif Kureishi says, as if somehow that would have made it better. The writer is talking about the accident that left him a tetraplegic. Or, as he likes to call himself with classic Kureishian brutality, a vegetable. Though he's not. His body may be broken, but his brain isn't.

It was 26 December 2022 and he was in Italy. Back then the writer spent half his idyllic life in Rome, half in London. His three sons were adult and independent, he had enough money to enjoy a good life, he was in love with his wife, Isabella d'Amico, and, at the age of 68, the enfant terrible of English literature was content in a way he'd never been. He was having a beer, watching the football on his iPad, when he had a dizzy spell. He stood up, took a few steps forwards and fainted. He later discovered he had fallen on his head and broken his neck. Kureishi was left paralysed.

Would it have made any difference if he had been pissed? "I could have reproached myself more. You seek some kind of explanation; some kind of finality. Why has it happened to me?" At the London Spinal Cord Injury Centre, where he was transferred after spending a year in Italian and English hospitals, he was surrounded by people asking themselves the same question. Virtually all had suffered horrific fluke injuries resulting in broken necks. "Some twat had fallen out of bed and broken his neck. Some other twat had fallen down the stairs and broken his neck." Twat, in Kureishi's lexicon, is not an insult - just a synonym for person. "A nice guy tripped over a rake in his garden and broke his neck. So everybody in there is thinking, what the fuck? One guy, a close friend of mine, a political philosopher and rock climber, fell on his head and was paralysed from the neck down." Kureishi's neck break is partial. He still has feeling and movement in his limbs, though he cannot walk or grip with his hands.