'I believed I was dying': Novelist Hanif Kureishi in hospital unable to move arms or legs after fall
6 January 2023, 21:27 | Updated: 7 January 2023, 02:44
British novelist and playwright Hanif Kureishi has said he is in hospital and can't feel his arms or legs following a fall in Rome.
Mr Kureishi The Buddha Of Suburbia, wrote on Twitter he is being treated at the Gemelli University Hospital in the Italian capital.
The 68-year-old explained that he was in Rome on Boxing Day, and fell after a walk to the Piazza del Popolo to the Villa Borghese, and then back to his flat.
Mr Kureishi said: "I had just seen Mo Salah score against Aston Villa, sipped half a beer, when I began to feel dizzy.
"I lent forward and put my head between my legs; I woke up a few minutes later in a pool of blood, my neck in a grotesquely twisted position, my wife on her knees beside me."
The celebrated writer said he then "experienced what can only be described a scooped, semicircular object with talons attached scuttling towards me" before realising it was his hand," adding: "It occurred to me then that there was no co-ordination between what was left of my mind and what remained of my body.
"I had become divorced from myself. I believed I was dying. I believed I had three breaths left."
He said his wife heard his "frantic shouting" from the floor and that she saved his life and kept him clam.
"For a few days I was profoundly traumatised, altered and unrecognisable to myself. I am in the hospital. I cannot move my arms and legs."
He added: "I cannot scratch my nose, make a phone call or feed myself. As you can imagine, this is both humiliating, degrading and a burden for others.
"I've had an operation on my spine and have shown minor improvements in the last few days."
The award-winning dramatist said he has "sensation and some movement" and will soon start physiotherapy and rehabilitation.
Dear followers,
— Hanif Kureishi (@Hanifkureishi) January 6, 2023
I should like you to know that on Boxing Day, in Rome, after taking a comfortable walk to the Piazza del Popolo, followed by a stroll through the Villa Borghese, and then back to the apartment, I had a fall.
"At the moment, it is unclear whether I will ever be able to walk again, or whether I'll ever be able to hold a pen, if there is any assistance that I would be grateful for, it would be with regard to voice assisted hardware and software, which will allow me to watch, write -and begin work again, and continue some kind of half life," he said.
Mr Kureishi won critical acclaim and a New York City Film Critics Circle Award for his screenplay of My Beautiful Laundrette, a Stephen Frears directed film about a gay British Pakistani in the 1980s, which also brought him an Oscar nomination for original screenplay.
His novel, The Buddha Of Suburbia, a semi-autobiographical story about a bisexual British South Asian character living the the suburbs of south London was adapted for a four-part BBC TV series.
Mr Kureishi was made a CBE 2008 for his services to literature and drama.
