Prick lit or naked hope? Self-exposure in Hanif Kureishi’s Intimacy

Abstract

Hanif Kureishi’s works contain numerous autobiographical features and are peopled with characters that often bear a striking similarity not only to the author himself but also to his relatives and ex-partners. Intimacy (1998) is conceived as the dramatic confessional monologue of a middle-aged man about to leave his partner and two children to live with a younger woman, an experience the author himself had not long before its publication. This article deals with the novella in the broader context of the author’s late 1990s texts in order to distinguish between autobiographic narrative and writing from experience, showing that the latter rather than the former is employed in these works. Supported by Kureishi’s defence of the book as a literary game it also argues that rather than providing a hateful perspective on femininity the novella offers a variation on one of the author’s idiosyncrasies – a hopeful belief in love and humanity. The article further attempts to explore the possibilities and limitations of the genre of confessional narrative as exemplified in Intimacy.