Hanif Kureishi and son Carlo write a book on life after paralysis

Hanif Kureishi has written a new book about life after a catastrophic fall, and he wrote it with his son Carlo. Are You With Me Now? charts how a writer, a couple and a family adapt to disability.

Kureishi was left tetraplegic, meaning paralysed in both arms and both legs, after a fall on Boxing Day 2022. He lost all movement in his hands and legs. His earlier memoir, Shattered, dealt with that paralysis directly.

The new book grew out of talk. Each chapter was made from dictated conversations between father and son, held between 10am and 1pm. To dictate means to speak words aloud for someone else to write down. Carlo Kureishi is credited as co-author alongside his father.

Kureishi has described the book as being about what it is like to leave hospital as a disabled person. That is the everyday part of the story, the stretch after the medical crisis when home has to be rebuilt around a new body.

The Southbank Centre in London lists an event called 'Hanif & Carlo Kureishi: Are You With Me Now?'. Its listing calls the book a fiercely funny, unflinching account of survival. Penguin publishes the book in the UK.

The Guardian reviewed the book on 29 October 2026. The review, by Melissa Denes, carries the headline 'back to basics'.

Kureishi has a long career in film as well as in books. He sat on the jury at the Venice film festival in 1992, alongside Dennis Hopper, and attended the Cannes festival in 2009, when Isabelle Huppert was jury president. Those years sit well behind this book, which is about a different kind of work: getting through each day with a body that no longer does what it once did.