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‘I Wanted a Human Touch’: Hanif Kureishi’s The Black Album

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Making Sense of Contemporary British Muslim Novels

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Abstract

This chapter argues that touch is the most amorphous and intricate of the five senses. Yet the haptic impacts every aspect of life: not least, the tactile experience of touching a book and turning its pages. Hanif Kureishi’s The Black Album (1995) revolves around an adulterous relationship between protagonist Shahid and his lecturer Deedee, and around an austere Muslim group Shahid joins which opposes extramarital touching. This chapter examines the extent to which Kureishi portrays the rave scene of the late 1980s and early 1990s as fostering nonviolence and agamic touch. It shows that Kureishi ultimately celebrates the rationalist, largely visual practice of reading over and above either sensualism on the one hand or Islamism on the other.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of English and Related Literature, University of York, York, UK

    Claire Chambers

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  1. Claire Chambers
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Correspondence to Claire Chambers .

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Chambers, C. (2019). ‘I Wanted a Human Touch’: Hanif Kureishi’s The Black Album. In: Making Sense of Contemporary British Muslim Novels. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-52089-0_2

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