Kureishi, who is bisexual,[15] lives in West London.[3][7] His entry in Who's Who lists his recreations as "music, cricket, sitting in pubs".[1]
He has twin boys (from his relationship with film producer Tracey Scoffield[16]) and a younger son. Although he acknowledges his father's Pakistani roots (originating in Madras, in British India, present-day Chennai, India), he rarely visits Pakistan. Upon a 2012 visit sponsored by the British Council, he acknowledged that it was his first trip to Pakistan in 20 years.[17]
Kureishi's uncle was the writer, columnist and Pakistani cricket commentator and team manager Omar Kureishi.[18] The poet Maki Kureishi was his aunt.[19]
Kureishi's family have accused him of exploiting them with thinly disguised references in his work; Kureishi has denied the claims. His sister Yasmin has accused him of selling her family "down the line". She wrote, in a letter to The Guardian, that if her family's history had to become public, she would not stand by and let it be "fabricated for the entertainment of the public or for Hanif's profit".[3][20] She says that his description of her family's working-class roots are fictitious. Their grandfather was not "cloth cap working class", their mother never worked in a shoe factory, and their father, she says, was not a bitter old man. Yasmin takes issue with her brother for his thinly-disguised autobiographical references in his first novel The Buddha of Suburbia, as well as for the image of his own past that he portrays in newspaper interviews. She wrote: "My father was angry when The Buddha of Suburbia came out as he felt that Hanif had robbed him of his dignity, and he didn't speak to Hanif for about a year."[3] Kureishi and his father did not speak for many months during the controversy.[3] There was further furore with the publication of Intimacy, as the story was assumed to be autobiographical.[3][7]
In early 2013, Kureishi lost his life savings, intended to cover "the ups and downs of being a writer", in a suspected fraud.[21] In October of that year, Kureishi was appointed as a professor in the creative writing department at Kingston University in London, where he was a writer in residence.[2] However, at Bath Literature Festival in March 2014, he stated that creative writing courses were a "waste of time" and commented that 99.9% of his students were talentless.[22]
In 2014, the British Library announced that it would be acquiring the archive of Kureishi's documents spanning 40 years of his writing life. The body of work was to include diaries, notebooks and drafts.[23]
On 26 December 2022, Kureishi was hospitalised following a fall in Rome, which left him with spinal injuries and unable to move his limbs.[24] According to Kureishi, the fall triggered a near-death experience. He was convinced he was going to die while in hospital.[25] Kureishi stated that his partner, Isabella d'Amico, helped keep him calm and saved his life.[26] He has since written about the fall and his recovery process on social media and in a blog.[27]
