Asif Kapadia’s 10 favourite books
British filmmaker Asif Kapadia has earned himself a reputation for being an incredibly talented documentarian, winning several BAFTAs and an Academy Award for his work.
Despite beginning his career making narrative features like 2001’s The Warrior and 2006’s The Return, his 2010 documentary Senna was a turning point for Kapadia. The movie follows the career of Formula 1 racing driver Ayrton Senna, who died during the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix. Senna was praised for its emotive depiction of the racing driver’s life, with the movie finding broad appeal outside of Formula 1 fans.
Subsequently, Kapadia followed Senna with another documentary, 2015’s Amy, which chronicled the life and death of Amy Winehouse using archival footage and previously unheard songs. The film won Kapadia the Academy Award for ‘Best Documentary Feature’. As he recently told Far Out, his documentaries follow the tenets of his cinematic heroes, commenting: “The term ‘giant’ is used too often to describe artists. But in the case of Akira Kurosawa, we have one of the rare instances where the term fits.”
The third instalment in the director’s trilogy of documentaries was Diego Maradona, with Kapadia stating (via The Independent), “I was fascinated by his journey, wherever he went there were moments of incredible brilliance and drama.” While the film wasn’t praised as highly as Senna and Amy, it was still lauded for its lucid exploration of the controversial footballer considered one of the greatest of all time.
Like all good directors, Kapadia is a well-versed reader; once selecting the ten books he considers his favourites. He cites The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi as not only “laugh out loud funny” but very “personal” too. Kapadia said, “One of the finest books, or actually any art form, to deal with the complexities of growing up being British and Asian. It’s about family, London, politics, art, relationships and the fascination with Eastern spirituality. I always shared the lead character’s dream of escaping to NYC.”
The director also selected Salaman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, explaining, “A real education for me as someone who grew up in London, who had never been to India while growing up. This book helped me better understand what my parents had been through, where they came from before they chose to travel across the world to settle in the the U.K., where I was born.”
Kapadia selected a classic of Russian literature, Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, stating, “I’ve always been fascinated by the psychology of people and trying to understand what motivates ordinary people to do the things they do, as well as the guilt and the redemption of these people afterwards. I cannot think of another book which took me into a character’s brain before, during, and after, a crime quite like this one.”
Another standout pick of Kapadia’s was The Autobiography of Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley, with the filmmaker elucidating, “An inspirational, life changing book about an amazing personal journey. I first read it just as I was starting college, and I’d grown up in a pretty poor, rough part of London.”
Discover Kapadia’s complete list of favourite books below.
Asif Kapadia’s 10 favourite books:
- The Buddha of Suburbia – Hanif Kureishi
- Midnight’s Children – Salaman Rushdie
- St. Agnes’ Stand – Thomas Edison
- Rock Springs – Richard Ford
- Marcovaldo – Italo Calvino
- Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
- Hitchcock – Francois Truffaut
- In Ghostly Japan – Lafcadio Hearn
- The Autobiography of Malcolm X – Alex Haley
- Perfume: The Story of a Murderer – Patrick Suskind
