Generalitat de Catalunya
Departament d’Ensenyament
Escoles Oficials d’Idiomes
“My Son the Fanatic” by Hanif Kureishi
Student Worksheet
Part 1: The Guardian Interview with Hanif Kureishi
This first activity is intended as a pre-reading activity. Listen to the interview with Hanif
Kureishi and answer the following questions:
1. Becoming a writer as a way to explain identity.
- Being a “paki” in Britain in the 1980s. What was it like?
- Kureishi’s memories from when he started writing
2. When did you first decide you wanted to be a writer?
- Life in the suburbs: What was it like?
- What kind of job would you expect for a person like him?
- Why didn’t he become a pop star or a football player?
3. What did the writers’ life look like in your head?
- “ Writing was like playing” Why?
Part 2: Character description through narrative. Guessing.
Read the three excerpts from Hanif Kureishi’s short story “My Son the Fanatic” and reflect
on the following questions:
1. What can you learn from the three main characters after reading the three texts? How
much can you guess? background, thoughts, beliefs, worries, etc.
2. Guess: What‘s wrong with Ali?
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
drugs?
A new girlfriend?
A new boyfriend /homosexuality?
Street gangs?
Religious fanaticism?
School problems?
Any other problems?
Materials elaborats pel grup de treball Brit-lit – Departament d’Ensenyament / British Council
Hanif Kureishi. My Son The Fanatic. Student Worksheet
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Generalitat de Catalunya
Departament d’Ensenyament
Escoles Oficials d’Idiomes
Text 1: Ali, the Son
Surreptitiously the father began going into his son’s bedroom. He would sit there for hours,
rousing himself only to seek clues. What bewildered him was that Ali was getting tidier.
Instead of the usual tangle of clothes, cricket bats, video games, the room was becoming
neat and ordered; spaces began appearing where before there had been only mess.
Initially Parvez had been pleased: his son was outgrowing his teenage attitudes. But one
day, beside the dustbin, Parvez found a torn bag which contained not only toys, but
computer discs, video tapes, new books and fashionable clothes they boy had bought just a
few months before. Also without explanation, Ali parted with his English girlfriend who used
to come often to the house. His old friends had stopped ringing.
Text 2: Parvez, the Father
Parvez had been a taxi driver for twenty years. Half the time he had worked for the same
firm. Like him, most of the other drivers were Punjabis. They preferred to work at night, the
roads were clearer and the money better. They slept during the day, avoiding their wives.
Together they led almost a boy’s life in the cabbies’ office, playing cards and practical
jokes, exchanging lewd stories, eating together and discussion politics and their problems.
Text 3: Bettina, Parvez’ friend
“Bettina had known Parvez for thee years.(…) He could talk to her about things he’d never
be able to discuss with his own wife. Bettina, in turn, always reported on her night’s
activities. He liked to know where she was and with whom. Once he had rescued her from a
violent client, and since then they had come to care for one another.”
Materials elaborats pel grup de treball Brit-lit – Departament d’Ensenyament / British Council
Hanif Kureishi. My Son The Fanatic. Student Worksheet
2
Generalitat de Catalunya
Departament d’Ensenyament
Escoles Oficials d’Idiomes
Part 3. After-reading activity. Character description through dialogue and final
discussion.
After reading Hanif Kureishi’s complete short story “My Son the Fanatic”, try to reach some
conclusions on what character said the sentences below (Parvez, Ali, Bettina). In what
ways do the characters’ words describe their attitudes towards
-
Life
-
Religion
-
Gender
-
Pleasure
-
Family life/ relationships
-
Identity and sense of belonging ?
1. ‘Don’t you know it’s wrong to drink alcohol?’
2. I was about to castigate the boy for being insolent but managed to control myself”
3. ‘You are not in the village now, this is England. We have to fit in’
4. ‘You are too implicated in Western civilization …how can you love something that hates
you?
5. ‘But I love England (…)They let you do almost anything here!’
6. ‘ I can’t bear to be looked at as if I’m a criminal’
7. ‘But you mustn’t give up on him’
8. ‘You must tell him what your philosophy of life is. Then he will understand that there are
other beliefs.’
9. ‘Yes. You should enjoy yourself. Yes. Enjoy yourself without hurting others.’
10‘Pray beside me.’
11. ‘What kind of woman I am that deserves to be spoken to like that?’
12. ‘So who’s the fanatic now?’
Materials elaborats pel grup de treball Brit-lit – Departament d’Ensenyament / British Council
Hanif Kureishi. My Son The Fanatic. Student Worksheet
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