My ear at his heart

When Hanif Kureishi discovers an abandoned manuscript that recounts his father's childhood in Bombay as the world turns upside down and India splits in two among religious lines: thus a family that had lived in India for generations now had to accept a Pakistani identity. So begins a journey which takes Kureishi through his father's privileged childhood by the sea in Bombay, to his adult life hidden away in the suburbs of Bromley - his days spent as a minor functionary in the Pakistan embassy in London, his nights writing prose, hopeful of one day receiving literary recognition.