Hanif Kureishi’s The Last Word: The Art of Fictional Biography

Year 2020, Volume: 14 Issue: 1, 51 - 61, 25.06.2020

Kuğu Tekin

Abstract

Hanif Kureishi’s 2014 novel, The Last Word is a “roman à clef,” which presents the literary biography of a world-renowned author of post-colonial literature -V.S. Naipaul- under the pseudonym of Mamoon Azam. This article traces the path of Kureishi, who assumes the role of the modern biographer as an artist engaged in the creative process, rather than an objective historian recording facts about an individual’s life. In the novel, it is observed that Kureishi meticulously avoids being a mere chronicler of events that shape his subject’s literary and private life; instead, Kureishi’s intention is to project a truthful personality portrait of “a literary giant,” that is, Mamoon Azam, the fictional counterpart of the factual V.S. Naipaul. Thus, the article particularly investigates such issues as Kureishi’s preferred structural methods in treating his biography as a work of art rather than a dry, barely readable, informative account of a life story; the possible difficulties a modern life-writer may encounter; and the changing role of the modern biographer from craftsman to artist. A final discussion in the article is based on Kureishi’s liminal status as a representative of the so-called ethnic authors living and producing in the West.

Keywords

Kureishi, roman à clef, biography, artist vs biographer

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