Novelist and playwright Hanif Kureishi has revealed he "believed I was dying" after his devastating fall in Rome on Boxing Day that left him unable to move his limbs.
The author of the novel ‘The Buddha of Suburbia’, said he could not move his arms and legs and wondered if he would ever walk again.
Currently in a hospital in the Italian capital, he recalled what he went through after watching Liverpool star score against Aston Villa.
“I had just seen Mo Salah score against Aston Villa, sipped half a beer when I began to feel dizzy. I leant 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.”
Kureishi, whose short story titled "The Premonitions", was published last month, wrote: “I then experienced what can only be described (as) a scooped, semi-circular object with talons attached scuttling towards me. Using what was left of my reason, I saw this was my hand, an uncanny object over which I had no agency.”
He went on: “It occurred to me then that there was no coordination 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.”
The writer, born to a Pakistani father and an English mother, urged people to suggest voice-assisted hardware and software that would allow him to “watch, write and begin work again."
“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 wrote in his Twitter message.
Anti-Racism protesters come out in support of refugees outside the Cladhan Hotel on September 13, 2025 in Falkirk, Scotland. (Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)
