From Shattered, by Hanif Kureishi, which will be published in February by Ecco. On December 26, 2022, while Kureishi was on vacation in Rome, he fainted, injured his spine in the fall, and became paralyzed.

january 10, 2023

I fell asleep and woke at one and was conscious for the rest of the night. I had many ideas, but since I couldn’t use my hands and make notes, I had to remember them until the next day when I could shout them at my son, Carlo, over the phone.

Literature, to its glory, is a dirty, bastard form. From the most vulgar and scurrilous to the most sublime and poetic—you can put anything in a book, twist it about, and turn it into something unforgettable.

Every day I dictate these thoughts, I open what is left of my broken body to give form to this chaos I have fallen into, to stop myself from dying inside.

january 14

I’ve had enough of this shit. I feel I lack the strength to take this on. I really don’t want to live like this. It’s shit, and I’m tired of asking Isabella to do so much for me. Then, a wheelchair-bound woman in her late thirties, with long, dyed bright-blue hair, rolls herself into the room, and we introduce ourselves. I’ll call her Miss S.

I ask if we can be friends. I plead with her not to let me go. She tells me she won’t. She says, “After my accident, when I first came here, I could use only one eye.”

january 16

Sleepless night. Not a moment’s rest. Racing mind. I wake up with an elevated temperature and fear of an infection. Blood in the urine.

A pop-in from my new friend, a fellow patient of my age, a man I call the Maestro, an actor and director who rolls into my room wearing a capacious hoodie and brings me a cappuccino.

Physios come and pull and push, prod and twist me. My body feels battered and broken.

january 17

At midmorning three nurses came to the room pushing a human-carrying machine—a hoist that resembles a small crane. They dress me; it’s the first time I’ve worn clothes since my accident. I am even wearing shoes.

The nurses attach me to the machine, which lifts me from my bed. For a few moments I hang in the air like a fly, my limbs dangling down beneath me. Then the hoist drops me nicely into a wheelchair.

My friend the Maestro spins in with my cappuccino. We then have a heated conversation with the doctor about how Americans drink cappuccinos at inappropriate times of the day.

The doctor said he had even heard of an American who had once requested a cappuccino in the evening. The Maestro could not believe that such a thing had happened. It would be like putting jam on pasta, he said.

january 21

This morning Miss S. and the Maestro came to my room for a trip to the hospital’s bar, but the nurse said he was busy and could not push me there.

So Miss S. got behind me, and behind her was the Maestro, and the two of them, in this wagon train of wheelchairs, pushed me all the way to the bar, where we had an Italian orange-flavored drink called Crodino and white pizza.

february 2

I want to be a good patient and to be recognized as a polite and decent man. I want to ask everyone their name, their story, and why they chose this job. At other times, I’m too tired for this rigmarole.

I recently had a discussion on the phone with my school friend David of Bromley. I put to him that old cliché, “Why me?” He replied, “Whyever would you think it would not be you?”

february 14

Miss S. and the Maestro come to visit me. They are both in the process of trying to shit independently. Both of them have had disastrous toilet accidents. They shat on the floor, which isn’t so unusual at this stage. But the Maestro is stressed and humiliated, and now begins to weep. Miss S. tells him not to be silly—it’s part of the development; there can be no progress without failure.