The Buddha of Suburbia

The experience of being a woman College

The Buddha of Suburbia is a novel written by Hanif Kureishi in 1990, which tells the story of a young man, named Karim Amir. Karim was born in England, as he describes himself in the book, “I am an Englishman born and bred, almost.” He is the son of an Indian father and an English mother. This book has an extremely accurate timeline, it is set in the 1970’s, and narrates the English cultural changes together along with the characters’ experiences, as the transition from the peaceful 1960’s to the revolted 1970’s, from the end of the hippie era to the start of the glamorous era, and the birth of the punk movement.

However, one of the remarking things this novel shows are the diverse characters’ personalities. Kureishi managed to create unique and very distinctive characters, each one of them representing their culture. In my opinion, the most interesting of all, are women. Luckily, in this novel, we are able to see many female characters, and all of them are very different from one another. Their experiences as women are diverse and from very different perspectives. For instance, Eva Kay and Margaret Amir are two women like chalk and cheese, but they have one thing in common: they have the same love interest.

Eva Kay is a...

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