About this product

Product Identifiers

PublisherPenguin Publishing Group

ISBN-10014013168X

ISBN-139780140131680

eBay Product ID (ePID)4038261252

Product Key Features

Book TitleBuddha of Suburbia

Number of Pages288 Pages

LanguageEnglish

Publication Year1991

TopicSagas, Family Life, Coming of Age, Literary

GenreFiction

AuthorHanif. Kureishi

FormatUk-B Format Paperback

Dimensions

Item Height0.7 in

Item Weight8 Oz

Item Length7.7 in

Item Width5.1 in

Additional Product Features

Intended AudienceTrade

LCCN90-021001

Dewey Edition20

TitleLeadingThe

Reviews"...brilliant...fascinating and infuriating...Kureishi has an extraordinary gift for creating vivid characters." -- The Boston Globe 'A wonderful novel. I doubt I will read a funnier one, or one with more heart, this year, possibly this decade.' -- Angela Carter, Guardian "One of the best comic novels of growing up, and one of the sharpest satires on race relations in this country that I've ever read."-- Independent on Sunday 'Brilliantly funny. A fresh, anarchic and deliciously unrestrained novel.' Sunday Times (London) 'A distinctive and talented voice, blithe, savvy, alive and kicking.' Hermione Lee, Independent (London) "delectable. . . . Resembling a modern-day Tom Jones , this is an astonishing book, full of intelligence and elan.'' -- Publishers Weekly "This remarkably fine first novel from the author of the screenplays My Beautiful Launderette and Sammy and Rosie Get Laid is a freewheeling tour through the London of the 1970's--a London as vice- and class-ridden as that of a Hogarth engraving."-- Kirkus Reviews

Grade FromTwelfth Grade

Dewey Decimal823.914

Grade ToUP

Synopsis"A wickedly funny novel" ( The New York Times ) from the author of SHATTERED "There was one copy going round our school like contraband. I read it in one sitting...I'd never read a book about anyone remotely like me before."--Zadie Smith My name is Karim Amir, and I am an Englishman born and bred, almost... The hero of Hanif Kureishi's debut novel is dreamy teenager Karim, desperate to escape suburban South London and experience the forbidden fruits which the 1970s seem to offer. When the unlikely opportunity of a life in the theatre announces itself, Karim starts to win the sort of attention he has been craving--albeit with some rude and raucous results. With the publication of The Buddha of Suburbia , Hanif Kureishi landed into the literary landscape as a distinct new voice and a fearless taboo-breaking writer. The novel inspired a ground-breaking BBC series featuring a soundtrack by David Bowie. Winner of the Whitbread Prize for Best First Novel, Karim Amir lives with his English mother and Indian father in the routine comfort of suburban London, enduring his teenage years with good humor, always on the lookout for adventure--and sexual possibilities. Life gets more interesting, however, when his father becomes the Buddha of Suburbia, beguiling a circle of would-be mystics. And when the Buddha falls in love with one of his disciples, the beautiful and brazen Eva, Karim is introduced to a world of renegade theater directors, punk rock stars, fancy parties, and all the sex a young man could desire. A love story for at least two generations, a high-spirited comedy of sexual manners and social turmoil, The Buddha of Suburbia is one of the most enchanting, provocative, and original books to appear in years.

LC Classification NumberPR6061.U68B8 1991