English national identity is defined by its imperial history, which continues to have substantial economic, social and political repercussions, not least of these being the migration of former subject peoples to Britain. Colonial theories coupled the apparent purity of white culture with national character and pride. However, these notions have been challenged, and increasingly English identity is understood as hybrid. Similarly, English masculinity has historically been constructed as an essentialised and homogenised entity and representative of the state of the realm. Hanif Kureishi's writing subverts and parodies the stereotypes of gender and national identity, negotiating the fragmentation and contradictions of the postcolonial metropolitan life through the deployment of imperfect and selfish male protagonists. They are frequently depicted as men of both Pakistani and English ethnicity, sexual promiscuous and/or gay or bisexual, entrepreneurial and financially savvy bohemians; they are characters who negotiate various cultural boundaries merely by ‘being themselves’. In Kureishi's work, masculinity as a cultural practice is akin to the performance of national identity. Kureishi incorporates a consciousness of the political landscape within his picaresque plots and offers, notwithstanding the humour and focus on individual character, a very intricate and sophisticated representation of hybrid identity, which this thesis attempts to theorise.
This thesis analyses the ways in which Kureishi represents the twinned masquerades of national belonging and gender by moving through a selection of his work in relation to three themes. The introduction establishes the colonial backdrop and briefly introduces Kureishi biographically. The first chapter considers representations of the nation; the next chapter moves 'inwards' to a study of suburban quests for Englishness, and the third considers sexual identities and transgressions. In tracing a relationship between national and sexual identities through these ever more psychologically intimate chapters, the thesis argues that the cultural paradigms used to construct an imperial British national and masculine identity were aligned and served each other. Furthermore, in Kureishi's writing these paradigms are revealed to be of continuing relevance, as characters in a postcolonial landscape negotiate the front or facade of nationalism by which masculine identity is constructed and controlled.