Didion & Kureishi – The Albums in White or Black

The White Album with a sample of her magical writing. “We tell ourselves stories in order to live” is the first sentence of this collection of essays written by Joan Didion.
“The White Album” includes her essays on Doris Lessing and Georgia O’Keefe.
Joan Didion Joan Didion

“I WILL BE HER WITNESS.
That would translate sere su testigo, and will not appear in your travelers’ phrasebook because it is not a useful phrase for the prudent traveler.’ Another beginning sentences from her novel “A Book of Common Prayer”.

Having lost her loved ones and having won an award for the brave book
Joan is still writing and today we celebrate her birthday.
(see her chart).
Joan shares a birthday with other funny writers and personality,
Calvin Trillin, Margaret Cho and Hanif Kureishi.

Joan is the wise seer with fragile exterior and migraine headaches,
Hanif Kureishi is our energetic bad boy growing old, who still manages to dislodge and confront us with taboos and dangerous subjects.

“The Black Album” is the second novel by Hanif Kureishi.
The novel takes its title from popstar Prince and nothing to do with Joan’s ‘The White Album”.
Hanif has a wonderful web site with his short stories and his essays.
There is a poignant essay about his father who was a failed writer, tells his readers the origin of how or why he wrote and became the writer as we know him today.
Zadie Smith represents the hybrid author from London today and here in US we do not get news on Kureishi who broke ground in Thatcher’s England in the 90’s with his powerful films and novels.

With Rachel Hanif Kureishi Hanif Kureishi

“But mostly the cinema is collaborative. It’s very boring being a writer. I go into a room every day. I shut the door. I stay in there and that’s it. I come out after a couple of hours with a headache. So working with Stephen Frears or working with Udayan Prasad who directed My Son the Fanatic, or working with the other directors in the theatre or the cinema enables me to collaborate with other imaginations. Then the actors come in and take their part. When Rachel Griffiths came in to My Son the Fanatic (1997) she made it a very different kind of film” (from Senses of Cinema)
My son the fanatic is getting another look today.
Q&A with Hanif Kureishi on My son the fanatic here.

Mother Superior and getting old – an article from Village Voice.

More lengthy one from Australia – See photo of Daniel Craig, yes that new James Bond was in this controversial film.