Hanif Kureishi Suffers Potentially Crippling Fall In Rome; ‘My Beautiful Laundrette’ Oscar Nominee Details Waking Up In “Pool Of Blood”

Getty

A currently crippling fall may see Hanif Kureishi unable to walk or “ever be able to hold a pen.”

In a series of social media posts today, the My Beautiful Laundrettescribe detailed how a moment of dizziness in Rome on December 26 led to a near death experience. “I believed I was dying,” the 1986 Oscar nominee wrote on Twitter Friday. “I believed I had three breaths left.”

“I cannot scratch my nose, make a phone call or feed myself,” Kureishi said, stating he’s had “minor improvements” since a spine operation in recent days.

In a moving and explicit thread, the acclaimed playwright, author and screenplay writer said that he had been watching a soccer match between Premier League rivals Liverpool and Aston Villa in the Italian capital when he began to feel sick and went down:

I had just seen Mo Salah score against Aston Villa, sipped half a beer, when I began to feel dizzy. I lent forward and put my head between my legs; I woke up a few minutes later in a pool of blood, my neck in a grotesquely twisted position, my wife on her knees beside me.

— Hanif Kureishi (@Hanifkureishi) January 6, 2023

I then experienced what can only be described a scooped, semi-circular object with talons attached scuttling towards me. Using what was left of my reason, I saw this was my hand, an uncanny object over which I had no agency.

— Hanif Kureishi (@Hanifkureishi) January 6, 2023

It occurred to me then that there was no coordination between what was left of my mind and what remained of my body. I had become divorced from myself. I believed I was dying. I believed I had three breaths left.

— Hanif Kureishi (@Hanifkureishi) January 6, 2023

It seemed like a miserable and ignoble way to die. Every evening before I go upstairs, put on the dishwasher, open the window and join my wife, I wonder how more opportunities there will be for these domestic felicities.

— Hanif Kureishi (@Hanifkureishi) January 6, 2023

From the floor my wife heard my frantic shouting. She saved my life and kept me calm. For a few days I was profoundly traumatised, altered and unrecognisable to myself. I am in the hospital. I cannot move move my arms and legs.

— Hanif Kureishi (@Hanifkureishi) January 6, 2023

I cannot scratch my nose, make a phone call or feed myself. As you can imagine, this is both humiliating, degrading and a burden for others. I’ve had an operation on my spine and have shown minor improvements in the last few days.

— Hanif Kureishi (@Hanifkureishi) January 6, 2023

I have sensation and some movement in all my limbs, and I will begin physio and rehabilitation and soon as possible. I want to thank the doctors and nurses at the Gemelli hospital, Rome, for all their extraordinary kindness, competence and care.

— Hanif Kureishi (@Hanifkureishi) January 6, 2023

At the moment, it is unclear whether I will ever be able to walk again, or whether I’ll ever be able to hold a pen, if there is any assistance that I would be grateful for, it would be with regard to voice assisted hardware and software, which will allow me to watch, write –

— Hanif Kureishi (@Hanifkureishi) January 6, 2023

and begin work again, and continue some kind of half life. If you have any ideas about how you might help, please comment below and my son will be in touch. I want to thank all my readers for their love and support over the years. Love Hanif

— Hanif Kureishi (@Hanifkureishi) January 6, 2023

Kureishi — who is best known on this side of the Atlantic for the 1985 cross-cultural love story Laundrette, starring Daniel Day-Lewis and directed by Stephen Frears, and 1993 miniseries The Buddha of Suburbia, which featured music composed and performed by David Bowie — remains hospitalized in Rome.

Nominated for a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar back in the Reagan and Thatcher Era, the prodigious Kureishi won the prestigious Whitebread Book Award (now termed the Costa Book Awards) for a debut novel in 1990 for Buddha of Suburbia A critical chronicler of British cultural, economic and racial realities, the South London born Kureishi was named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2008.