Hanif Kureishi

is a British born playwright and screen play writer ("My Favorite Laundrette", "Sammy and Rosie Get Laid") whose father is Indo-Pakistani, and mother English. He memoirs "My Ear at His Heart" is half the story of his father, and half his own story.

Devoted readers with good memories may recall my posting about Vikram Seth's "Two Lives", where Seth traced the lives of his Indian uncle and German Jewish aunt.

Seth and Kureishi do not seem to be similar. Seth appears personally more restrained and inhibited. But they wrote virtually the same book: a book written by an Indian in Britain, who in spite of success, can't figure out who he is or where he is going, and who try to figure it out by looking at a generation back, the generation who actually made the move to Europe, and dissecting their insecurities, their struggles, their limitations, their failures.

I felt sorry for Seth, as someone who clearly is too inhibited to live the life he wants, and I guess feel equally about Kureishi, who has the opposite problem. Their stories are interesting, to be sure, but not exactly heartwarming.

I saw "My Favorite Laundrette" some years ago and don't recall that I liked it much. My guess is that I would feel that way about most things Kureishi writes.