Hanif Kureishi is a novelist, screenwriter, and playwright. He is the author of nine novels, including The Buddha of Suburbia (winner of the Whitbread Prize for Best First Novel), The Black Album, Intimacy, and The Nothing. His screenplay of My Beautiful Laundrette was nominated for an Oscar, and he is the recipient of the PEN/Pinter Prize, the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, and was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire. He lives in London.