Skip to main content

Please note: this event has passed


Professor Ruvani Ranasinha, author of Hanif Kureishi: Writing the Self, is taking part in a Q&A with Chiswick Book Festival Director Torin Douglas to mark the 40th anniversary of Kureishi’s extraordinary, Oscar-nominated first film My Beautiful Laundrette (1985).

About Ruvani Ranasinha

Literature Professor at King’s College London, Ruvani Ranasinha is the author of the first biography of Hanif Kureishi: Writing the Self (Manchester University Press 2023).

Ruvani will explore how Kureishi’s life-story informs the screenplay that propelled him to the fore.She sheds new light on Kureishi’s finest cinematic statement on the condition of England under Thatcher. She shows how the film defined British multiculturalism as funny, cool and appealing and traces the impact of the gay relationship at its centre, between British Asian Omar and his old school friend white working-class Johnny, emerging in a decade when modern gay identity was born.

About the film

Stephen Frears and Hanif Kureishi’s Oscar-nominated drama.

Set in the Pakistani community of London, My Beautiful Laundrette follows the fortunes of handsome young Omar who, together with his English friend Johnny, takes over a run-down laundrette given to him by his rich uncle. Together they transform it into a gaudy, neon-lit palace complete with muzak and video screens. Against a background of racial tension and poverty in the rough London suburb, their own relationship, portrayed with tenderness and passion, blossoms to love.

At this event

Ruvani Ranasinha

Professor of Global Literatures

Event details


Chiswick Cinema
94 – 96 Chiswick High Road, W4 1SH