theme of Hanif Kureishi's "Face to Face with You"

Kureishi often displays a preoccupation in his work with broad stereotypes of the West being solely materialistic and the East solely religious. He explores these themes in his stories by creating characters that embody and subvert the binaries of these opposing cultures. In doing so, Kureishi illustrates that these stereotypes do not hold up in real-life situations, although they shape the way people think of each other. Kureishi therefore encourages readers to abandon ideals of a binary world and to rather resist prejudice and to view people as individuals rather than symbols of their supposed culture and what it represents.