Laughter in Transition: Humour, Performance, and Identity in Hanif Kureishi’s The Buddha of Suburbia

This article examines the function of humour in Hanif Kureishi’s The Buddha of Suburbia (1990) by analysing the shifting direction and ambivalence of laughter in Karim Amir’s theatrical performances. Drawing on postcolonial humour studies, particularly debates on “laughing back,” and on Homi Bhabha’s concepts of mimicry, ambivalence, and the Third Space, the article adopts a close textual analysis of Karim’s successive acting roles. Set in 1970s Britain, Kureishi’s novel explores questions of racial identity, ethnic difference, Britishness, and belonging through Karim, a second-generation British Indian persistently positioned as the racial “other” despite his insistence on a British identity. Focusing on his performances as Mowgli, Anwar, and Tariq, the article demonstrates how humour both reproduces and disrupts racial stereotypes. While Karim initially becomes the object of superior laughter through Orientalist representations that enable racial stereotyping, he later attempts to redirect the laughter generated by the colonial gaze to negotiate his place within British society and culture. These efforts repeatedly give way to ambivalence, as his performances remain entangled with stereotypical representations of migrant figures and his autobiographical self. Ultimately, humour circulates multidirectionally, destabilising clear distinctions between the laughing subject and the object of laughter. By tracing this unstable direction of laughter, this study opens a new line of enquiry, arguing that humour in The Buddha of Suburbia unsettles fixed notions of Britishness and foregrounds the complexity and fluidity of hybrid identity.