Hanif Kureishi Suffers Potentially Crippling Fall In Rome; ‘My Beautiful Laundrette’ Oscar Nominee Details Waking Up In “Pool Of Blood”

deadline.com:

A currently crippling fall may see Hanif Kureishi unable to walk or “ever be able to hold a pen.” In a series of social media posts today, the My Beautiful Laundrettescribe detailed how a moment of dizziness in Rome on December 26 led to a near death experience. “I believed I was dying,” the 1986 Oscar nominee wrote on Twitter Friday. “I believed I had three breaths left.” “I cannot scratch my nose, make a phone call or feed myself,” Kureishi said, stating he’s had “minor improvements” since a spine operation in recent days.

In a moving and explicit thread, the acclaimed playwright, author and screenplay writer said that he had been watching a soccer match between Premier League rivals Liverpool and Aston Villa in the Italian capital when he began to feel sick and went down: I had just seen Mo Salah score against Aston Villa, sipped half a beer, when I began to feel dizzy.

I lent forward and put my head between my legs; I woke up a few minutes later in a pool of blood, my neck in a grotesquely twisted position, my wife on her knees beside me.I then experienced what can only be described a scooped, semi-circular object with talons attached scuttling towards me.

Using what was left of my reason, I saw this was my hand, an uncanny object over which I had no agency.It occurred to me then that there was no coordination between what was left of my mind and what remained of my body.