The Buddha of Suburbia and over 1.5 million other books are available for Amazon Kindle . Learn more

Buy Used
Used - Very Good See details
Price: £1.58
Fulfilled by Amazon

or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
 
   
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
Sorry, this item is not available in
Image not available for
Colour:
Image not available

 
Share your own customer images
Search inside another edition of this book
Start reading The Buddha of Suburbia on your Kindle in under a minute.

Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App.

The Buddha of Suburbia [Paperback]

Hanif Kureishi (Author)
3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (52 customer reviews)

Available from these sellers.


Formats

 Amazon Price New from Used from
Kindle Edition £4.79   -- --
Hardcover --   -- --
Paperback £5.66   -- --
Paperback, 8 April 1991 --   -- --
Audio, Cassette, Audiobook --   -- --
Audio Download, Unabridged £14.77 or Free with Audible.co.uk 30-day free trial
Books Trade-In
Amazon.co.uk Trade-In Store
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. Special Offer until June 30, 2013: Receive an additional £5 promotional Gift Certificate, when you trade-in at least £10 worth of books. Learn more.

Book Description

Publication Date: 8 April 1991

The Buddha of Suburbia, Hanif Kureishi's first novel, is a tour de force of comic invention, a bizarre, often hilarious, and totally original picture of the life of a young Pakistani growing up in 1970s Britain.

Karim lives with his Mum and Dad in a suburb of south London and dreams of making his escape to the bright lights of the big city. But his father is no ordinary Dad, he is 'the buddha of suburbia', a strange and compelling figure whose powers of meditation hold a circle of would-be mystics spellbound with the fascinations of the East.

Among his disciples is the glamorous and ambitious Eva, and when 'the buddha of suburbia' runs off with her to a crumbling flat in Barons Court, Karim's life becomes changed in ways that even he had never dreamed of . . .

Special Offers and Product Promotions

  • Amazon Family members enjoy 20% off every delivery of nappies. Join today to get your discount, as well as a free trial of Amazon Prime and up to £50 worth of offers every month.

Product details

  • Paperback: 284 pages
  • Publisher: Faber and Faber; New edition edition (8 April 1991)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0571142745
  • ISBN-13: 978-0571142743
  • Product Dimensions: 19.2 x 12.6 x 2.4 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (52 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 237,958 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

    •  Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

More About the Author

› Visit Amazon's Hanif Kureishi Page
Hanif Kureishi
Discover books, learn about writers, and more.

Product Description

Book Description

Beautiful paperback Faber Firsts edition to commemorate Faber's 80th Anniversary.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Hanif Kureishi was born and brought up in Kent. He read philosophy at King's College, London. In 1981 he won the George Devine Award for his plays Outskirts and Borderline, and in 1982 he was appointed Writer-in-Residence at the Royal Court Theatre. In 1984 he wrote My Beautiful Laundrette, which received an Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay. His second screenplay Sammy and Rosie Get Laid (1987) was followed by London Kills Me (1991) which he also directed. The Buddha of Suburbia won the Whitbread Prize for Best First Novel in 1990 and was made into a four-part drama series by the BBC in 1993. His version of Brecht's Mother Courage has been produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal National Theatre. His second novel, The Black Album, was published in 1995. With Jon Savage he edited The Faber Book of Pop (1995). His first collection of short stories, Love in a Blue Time, was published in 1997. His story My Son the Fanatic, from that collection, was adapted for film and released in 1998. Intimacy, his third novel, was published in 1998, and a film of the same title, based on the novel and other stories by the author, was released in 2001 and won the Golden Bear award at the Berlin Film Festival. His play Sleep With Me premièred at the Royal National Theatre in 1999. His second collection of stories, Midnight All Day, was published in 2000. Gabriel's Gift, his fourth novel, was published in 2001. The Body and Seven Stories and Dreaming and Scheming, a collection of essays, were published in 2002. His screenplay The Mother was directed by Roger Michell and released in 2003. In 2004 he published his play When The Night Begins and a memoir, My Ear At His Heart. A second collection of essays, The Word and the Bomb, followed in 2005. His screenplay Venus was directed by Roger Michell in 2006. His novel Something to Tell You was published in 2008.In July 2009 his adaptation of his novel, The Black Album, opened at the National Theatre, prior to a nation-wide tour. In 2010 his Collected Stories were published.He has been awarded the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
Inside This Book (Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
Search inside this book:

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
24 of 24 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Celibacy in the suburbs....? I doubt it 17 Sep 2009
By Pamela Learmonth
Format:Paperback
Hailing from the borough of Bromley myself (albeit growing up there in a different decade), this book has been on my "I really should read that" list for years. Having finally got round to it (the reading part took only a matter of days, you'll see why below) I thought I may as well do the book the courtesy of setting out my humble thoughts on it.

The pace of the book is quick. It's an uptempo tale taking you from the south London suburbs, to well-heeled Kensington, glamorous New York and back again before you know it. Characters that are bonkers. Characters you'd love to have a beer with. Characters you have an ache in your chest for out of pure sympathy. Characters you would literally do an about turn in the street to avoid.

I don't think it's the place of these reviews to spell out the plot, and other people have taken the trouble in other reviews in any case. But Kureishi captures that longing for meaning and excitement that all (normal) teenagers and people in their early 20s experience, to a tee. People of that age are rightly selfish and need to take things for granted in order to find out what really matters to them.

This book captures that spirit of freedom in life. You never know where you might end up, who with and why. You also never know when you might surprise yourself and just go after something completely different in life to everything you had worked for and previously valued. It's a breath of fresh air and Kureishi's blunt and often brutal prose exploits that essence to the max. He writes it as it is and I like that.

For me the best character in the book is the surburb itself.... Read more ›
Comment | 
Was this review helpful to you?
Yes
No
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars zeitgeist of late 70s society, music and parental divorce. 22 Feb 2001
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
A humerous, intellectual and very observed insight into the growing up of a British Indian, his sexuality, viewpoints, career and family life. Based in the late 70s it encompasses wonderfully all the pains and joys of school to adulthood from the perspective of the voyeur, or should that be involved observer?
Comment | 
Was this review helpful to you?
Yes
No
23 of 26 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars A search for identity crossing the boundaries of hybridity. 10 Jan 2002
By lilmerricks@hotmail.com
Format:Paperback
Hanif Kureshi introduces us to the world of Karim, who, as a Seventeen year old boy with an English mother and an eccentric Indian father, is searching for his own identity. Karim is more of an English youth than the exotic Indian boy as everyone percieves him to be. Indeed, his English step-brother is more exotic than him. Karim experiments with new ideas in his search to find himself, he is not pinned down to any place or group of people. Instead, he is able to mix with anyone, and move around in any social circle in 1970s London. It is his hybridity that allows him to do this. He is neither one thing or another.
A very amusing and thought provoking novel. It opens the world up, and at the same time it makes it seem more familiar to us. We learn a great deal about ourselves through it.
Comment | 
Was this review helpful to you?
Yes
No
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars Rather slow moving and lacking in a good thread throughout 26 Feb 2009
By John M VINE™ VOICE
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is a book that received much acclaim at the time, although frankly speaking I struggled through it. The book charts a teenager with an Indian father and English mother through the 1970s, detailing the changes in society, fashions and music, against a backdrop of family breakups and relationships. Although it has a few good characters and funny moments, they were for me rather few and far between. The music and trend descriptions seemed rather self-conscious throughout. The characters were general unappealling and somewhat caricatured. I had very little interest in the main character, Karim, and his bisexual adventures and stage career. The book lacked a strong storyline, and became a mish-mash of assorted characters and scenes without a strong thread to bind it together. The book ended rather abruptly, although I'm not complaining about that! Perhaps the author ran out of writing paper? Rather a 'miss' for me, I'm afraid.
Comment | 
Was this review helpful to you?
Yes
No
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Hilarious! 28 Oct 2012
By Pepper
Format:Paperback
This novel wasn't what I expected...in a good way! The book had me laughing out loud at several parts, and is brilliantly insightful. The novels protagonist is half British, half Indian, but doesn't feel like he fits into either of these identities. He is confused about his life, sexuality, his morality....and tells us all this with some of the funniest dialogue I've ever read. You won't regret reading this.
Comment | 
Was this review helpful to you?
Yes
No
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Funny, entertaining, and deeper than you realise 18 Sep 2009
By BookWorm TOP 500 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback
A great comic novel set in the 1970s, The Buddha of Suburbia is a coming-of-age story centred on Karim. At the start of the story he is a teenager, desperate to escape suburbia. His chance comes when his father reinvents himself as an unlikely new-age guru and runs off with another woman. It did remind me in some ways of Adrian Mole (though it is not written in diary format), particulary the early chapters. There's the same laugh-out-loud observational comedy and dry humour, the same eccentricity, and the same hint of pathos underlying it all. But it's probably a more literary novel than Mole.

Class is an important theme, as is race, but the latter is not made the focus of the book. The differences between the lives and values of the different social classes in Britain are shown to be as big and difficult to bridge as those of race. I liked that the novel took a different angle on the popular culture-clash issue, and presented it in a fresh and original way.

Karim's narrative voice is full of dry wit, and the characters are wonderfully described. Even though some were eccentric, all were believable. The book spans a number of years and is very well paced, showing how characters grow and develop - or stay the same - over time. It is always interesting and entertaining, and you're never too sure what will happen next, although it's not gripping in the conventional thriller sense. Just a minor warning - there's a lot of sex and drugs and punk music - the first quite graphic in places - so the easily offended reader may wish to think again. But it was nothing unreasonable and nothing worse than you'll find in many modern novels.

If you want a book that is funny and that will make you think, this will do the job nicely.... Read more ›
Comment | 
Was this review helpful to you?
Yes
No
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?   Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars Great read
Good read and as I am from South London I could relate to the places in the book. Different uplifting an easy read.
Published 4 days ago by Belle1965
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant
I don't know what to say that hasn't already been said. Why did it take me so long to get around to reading this? Read more
Published 20 days ago by P. Wheeler
4.0 out of 5 stars Totally original
Hilarious, unpredictable, sensitive but gritty portrayal of racist Britain in the 70's. a totally original novel that leads the reader through a multitude of experiences,... Read more
Published 23 days ago by Mrs. A. J. Marr
4.0 out of 5 stars Up and down
The more I read the more I enjoyed, as the characters developed it becomes harder to put the book down. Read more
Published 1 month ago by MR D J BRUNNING
5.0 out of 5 stars Good Read!
Any book that name checks the late Kevin Ayers is a winner! It kept me gripped till the end. Highly recommended.
Published 1 month ago by Fine_Old_Tom
4.0 out of 5 stars Amusing and interesting
Amusing tale of life in south London's suburbia, as experienced by a not-entirely Indian family in the late seventies/early eighties, told from the point of view of the teenage... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Kimberly Sims
4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting
An interesting story exploring both society and how people fit into it. Especially those who think of themselves on the outside or otherwise apart from it
Published 1 month ago by R. Hale
1.0 out of 5 stars Not for me
I found this book difficult to read and rapidly lost interest in it. It is crude in places and is not a book I would want on my bookshelf.
Published 1 month ago by Dr Leonard M Fenton
3.0 out of 5 stars Buddah
Lovely holiday book, at times a little rambling but overall was enjoyable to read and had some quite interesting moments.
Published 1 month ago by Jenna
1.0 out of 5 stars :(
Dreadful book. Bought as it was a suggestion on a syllabus, read a couple of chapters and put it in the bin.
Published 3 months ago by Mrs G
Search Customer Reviews
Only search this product's reviews

There's a problem loading this menu at the moment.

Learn more about Amazon Prime.

    Your Shopping Basket is empty.

    Give it purpose -- fill it with books, DVDs, clothes, electronics and more.

    If you already have an account, sign in.

    There's a problem previewing your shopping basket at the moment.

    Check your Internet connection and go to your cart, or try again.

    View Shopping Basket (0 items)

      Customer Discussions

      This product's forum
      Discussion Replies Latest Post
      No discussions yet

      Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
      Start a new discussion
      Topic:
      First post:
      Prompts for sign-in
       


      Active discussions in related forums
      Search Customer Discussions
      Search all Amazon discussions
         
      Related forums

      Listmania!

      Create a Listmania! list

      Look for similar items by category

      Feedback