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Desert Island Discs

Castaway guests share the soundtrack of their lives.

Eight tracks, a book and a luxury: what would you take to a desert island? Guests share the soundtrack of their lives.

Desert Island Discs: Hanif Kureishi

21/04/1996

Hanif Kureishi

BBC Radio 4 - Desert Island Discs, Hanif Kureishi

Sue Lawley's castaway is novelist and playwright Hanif Kureishi

Sue Lawley's castaway is novelist and playwright Hanif Kureishi.

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is the novelist and playwright Hanif Kureishi. He'll be talking to Sue Lawley about his enormously successful screenplay for My Beautiful Laundrette, his novel - televised by the BBC - The Buddha of Suburbia and his love of pop music which he plays at full volume whilst writing. 

He'll also be discussing the racial abuse which dominated his childhood in Bromley, where, as the son of an Indian father and an English mother, and the only Asian boy in his school, he was invited to instigate racial bullying, as often as finding himself to be its target. 

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] 

Favourite track: In A Silent Way by Miles Davis
Book: Complete Works by Sigmund Freud
Luxury: Marijuana seeds

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Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Letter from America by Alistair Cooke

Alistair Cooke’s weekly talks on American life, history and politics from 1946 – 2004.

Alistair Cooke’s weekly talks on American life, history and politics, as broadcast on BBC Radio 4 from 1946 – 2004.

Alistair Cooke’s weekly talks on American life, history and politics. Over 900 programmes, as broadcast from 1946 – 2004.

Letter from America by Alistair Cooke: Erma Bombeck

Erma Bombeck

BBC Radio 4 - Letter from America by Alistair Cooke, Erma Bombeck

Memories of columnist Erma Bombeck (1927 -96).

The life and work of columnist Erma Bombeck, "America's only woman humourist", and writer of "At Wit's End", is remembered by Alistair Cooke.

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