"In late 2022, in Rome, Hanif Kureishi had a fall. When he came to, he realized he could no longer walk. He could do nothing without the help of others and required constant care in a hospital. So began a yearlong odyssey through the medical systems of Rome and Italy, with the hope of somehow being able to return home to his house in London. While confined to a series of hospital wards, he felt compelled to write, but being unable to type or hold a pen, he began to dictate to family members the words that formed in his head--thoughts on his medical condition, but also parenthood, immigration, sex, psychoanalysis, and, of course, writing. The result was [a] ... series of dispatches from his hospital bed: a diary of a life in pieces, recorded with rare honesty, humor, and verve"--
Extraordinary, unique and unputdownable . . . an exceptional volume as original as Jean-Dominique Bauby's stroke classic The Diving Bell and the Butterfly [and] as profound and affected as Salman Rushdie's Knife . . . This fall provoked a rare, and inspiring, defiance . . . Shattered, with its unique authorship, has become a life-saver. For the reader, this compounds the intensity of its witness Robert McCrum Independent







