The Buddha of Suburbia, Hanif Kureishis first novel, is a tour de force of comic invention, a bizarre, often hilarious, and totally original picture of the life of a young Pakistani growing up in 1970s Britain. Karim lives with his mum and dad in a suburb of South London and dreams of making his escape to the bright lights of the big city. But hsi father is no ordinary dad, he is the buddha of suburbia, a strange and compelling figure whose powers of meditation hold a circle of would-be mystics spellbound with the fascinations of the East. Among his disciples in the glamorous and ambitious Eva, and when the buddha of suburbia runs off with her to a crumbling flat in Barons Court, Karims life becomes changed in ways that even he had never dreamed of ... Hanif Kureishi is the author of novels (including Something to Tell You, The Buddha of Suburbia, The Black Album and Intimacy), story collections (Love in a Blue Time, Midnight All Day, The Body), plays (including Outskirts, Borderline and Sleep With Me), and screenplays (including My Beautiful Laundrette, My Son the Fanatic and Venus).