HUMOUR, COLOUR AND RELIGION IN THE BUDDHA OF SUBURBIA BY HANIF KUREISHI
HUMOUR, COLOUR AND RELIGION IN THE BUDDHA OF SUBURBIA BY HANIF KUREISHI

Summary/Abstract: The plural perspective of identity raises numerous questions in nowadays’ society and The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi is one example of how literary style, racial issues and religious aspects can be interwoven in order to represent the contemporary reality of the spiritual transformations of the human mind in conditions of divergence and anxiety, starting from the experiences of a seventeen-year-old boy of Indian origin living with his family in a London suburb. The paper deals with how critics define the stages of the ethnic interaction and what role the logos and the humour play in the making of a new truthful and natural identity. It reveals the representations of possible postethnic points of view when colour and religion are at stake and takes into consideration the rewriting of several important books for the colonial period, such as The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling. In the end, the paper places the novel in the contemporary context accepting the debate over the many factors that influence human identity, which is not immutable but subject to ongoing voluntary or involuntary change.

• Details
• Contents