Tell me a story Dad: (Post)memory and the archaeology of subjectivity in Hanif Kureishi’s My Ear at His Heart

Abstract

This article argues that there are complex connections between imagined and lived experiences of “Britishness” in Hanif Kureishi’s (re)constructions of the past in his memoir My Ear at His Heart. These connections are inextricably tied to Kureishi’s relationships with the father figures in his life, and as such they can provide interpretive insights into both his work and the process of authorial self-fashioning. The focus of the article is on how Kureishi “imagines” a past, a father, an India and a migratory experience through the writings of his father, and on the way in which these affect his development as author, individual, and British subject. Ultimately, it is suggested this process enables Kureishi to rethink himself, his work, his father and his past, although not without issues and tensions, as all these dimensions collapse into the unreliable domain of memory. Kureishi’s process of identity formation is seen here as an “archaeology of subjectivity”, in the sense that he constructs a self and a persona, in large part by excavating through the self-constitutive memories of the previous generation.

Keywords:

• Hanif Kureishi
• postmemory
• life narratives
• identity
• Britishness/Englishness

Acknowledgements

My gratitude goes to Stephanos Stephanides and Stavros Stavrou Karayanni for their academic and personal support. I would also like to thank the editors of this special issue of the Journal of Postcolonial Writing (Petra Tournay-Theodotou, Ulrike Pirker and Sofia Muñoz Valdivieso) for their feedback and ideas, which allowed me to explore additional dimensions of this topic.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. For the purposes of this article I am using “life narrative” as an inclusive term which encompasses autobiographies, memoirs, personal writings and life writing in general. Distinguishing between terms such as “autobiography” and “life writing”, for instance, is beyond the focus of this article.

2. Kureishi (1985, 9), for instance, was mistakenly seen as an Indian, Mowgli-like figure while in school.