Honour for author Hanif Kureishi

My Beautiful Launderette earned a best screenplay Oscar nomination

Novelist, playwright and screenwriter Hanif Kureishi has been appointed a CBE in the Queen's New Year Honours List.

Born in 1954 in London, Kureishi had a Pakistani father and an English mother, and studied philosophy at King's College, London.

He started out by writing pornography under the pseudonym Antonia French before his first play, Soaking the Heat, was performed at the Royal Court Theatre in London in 1976.

Six years later he became the venue's writer in residence.

His screenplay for the 1985 film My Beautiful Laundrette was nominated for an Academy Award and launched Daniel Day-Lewis's acting career.

The movie was directed by Stephen Frears and described a relationship between a gay skinhead and a Pakistani-British boy.

Part-autobiographical

Kureishi's first novel, The Buddha of Suburbia, was an international bestseller and in 1990, it won the Whitbread book of the year award for a first novel.

Buddha of Suburbia starred Brenda Blethyn and Naveen Andrews

Said to be partly autobiographical, it was about Karim - a young, bisexual, half-Indian, half-English man, growing up in south London in the 1970s.

The book was turned into a four-part television series by the BBC in 1993, with David Bowie providing a song of the same name.

He also wrote the screenplays for Sammy and Rosie Get Laid and London Kills Me, which he also directed.

His second novel, The Black Album, explored some of the issues facing the Muslim community living in Britain in the 1980s.

Oscar nomination

Kureishi's 1998 novel Intimacy, an account of a man's decision to leave his partner and two young sons, was loosely adapted into a film starring Mark Rylance and Kerry Fox.

His drama The Mother told of a cross-generation relationship between a grandmother and a married handyman half her age.

This also became a film, with Anne Reid and James Bond actor Daniel Craig in the lead roles.

His 2006 screenplay Venus earned best actor nominations at the Oscar, Bafta and Golden Globe awards for veteran actor Peter O'Toole.

Kureishi's latest novel, Something to Tell You, is due to be published next year.