The author and playwright Hanif Kureishi was born in London in 1954. He is the author of The Buddha of Suburbia, Intimacy and Something to Tell You. His first play, Soaking the Heat, was staged in 1976, and My Beautiful Laundrette , for which he wrote the screenplay, was released in 1985.
He was appointed CBE in 2007, for services to literature and drama. Here he briefly tells BBC News his thoughts about religion.
Would you describe yourself as religious?
I've always been fascinated by religion. For me it's the deepest form of human expression, along with culture.
 Hanif Kureishi's favourite religious song is the Rolling Stones's "Sympathy for the Devil" |
God is mankind's finest creation. Has there been a better idea than that of God?
Do you believe in God, and if so, what sort of god?
I believe in the need to understand what the idea of God, or gods, do for us.
What do you think happens after you die?
You dissolve into the minds of others, and you haunt them until they are tired of you, and even after.
Does it change your view of someone when you find out that they are religious and how?
You have to think about whether they are merely following the values of those around them, or whether they are delusional psychotics!
Is religion a good thing?
That's an impossible question.
Most people in most societies during human history have lived in what could be described as 'religious' communities.
Religions, like novels and myths, describe the world and help make it safer.
What impact has religion had on your life?
It's made me think about the important questions: sexuality, childhood, authority, death, power.
Have you ever had a religious experience and can you describe it?
I was thrown out of the East London mosque for being a dissident writer and critic of radical Islam.
What is your favourite religious song?
Sympathy for the Devil, by the Rolling Stones.
What religious leader, if any, most inspires you?
Most religious leaders are ignorant fools.
It's a shame so few of them are intelligent or even interesting.
It makes you wonder why the dullest people hang around religions. Gives the whole thing a bad name.
What is your favourite religious book?
The most interesting work about the use of religion as a form of organisation of the resentful and envious is Nietzsche's "On The Genealogy of Morals".
