Shattered: A Memoir

From acclaimed author and playwright Hanif Kureishi comes an urgent and stunning memoir about rebuilding a new life in the wake of devastating physical loss.

In late 2022, in Rome, Hanif Kureishi had a fall. When he came to, he realized he could no longer walk. He could do nothing without the help of others and required constant care in a hospital. So began a yearlong odyssey through the medical systems of Rome and Italy, with the hope of somehow being able to return home to his house in London.

While confined to a series of hospital wards, he felt compelled to write, but being unable to type or hold a pen, he began to dictate to family members the words that formed in his head--thoughts on his medical condition, but also parenthood, immigration, sex, psychoanalysis, and, of course, writing. The result was an extraordinary series of dispatches from his hospital bed: a diary of a life in pieces, recorded with rare honesty, humor, and verve.

Shattered takes these dispatches--edited, expanded, and meticulously interwoven with new writing--and charts both a shattering and a reassembling: a new life born of pain and loss but also animated by new feelings of gratitude, humility, and love.