Jane Clinton in The Guardian:
Hanif Kureishi has spoken candidly of how his sense of self and privacy have been “completely eradicated” after a fall on Boxing Day last year left him unable to use his hands, arms or legs.
As guest editor of BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, the novelist and screenwriter also said he had to adjust to “becoming another person” after the accident, in which he collapsed and fell on his head after a walk in Rome.
The 69-year-old, best known for The Buddha of Suburbia, is still unable to use his limbs and has spent the last year in five different hospitals, according to the programme. Much of the show was recorded at the Royal National Orthopaedic hospital in London.
Kureishi said that since the accident he felt like an “exhibit” being surrounded by doctors, adding: “It is humiliating at the start and then you begin to realise that it doesn’t really matter.
“You realise quite quickly that your body doesn’t belong to you any more … that you are changed, washed, poked and prodded by nurses and doctors, random people all the time.
“You give up any sense of privacy: of your body, of your mind, of your soul, of anything about you … it’s completely eradicated.”
More here.