So, I am writing, and I am going to finish, and I am a bit scared if I let myself think about it. Because what I need to do in my life is to write. Still, even through all the fear and criticism, Ali couldn’t not write. So it’s not like this mystical thing that is questionable if a brown woman does it,” she adds.

“All of my characters, I’m drawing on myself, on other people in my imagination, it’s the same process. It seems Ali, as a BAME writer, can only have authenticity as a brown woman, not as a person. I mean, there’s no hard work, talent, imagination, determination,” she says. But somehow there’s a notion, slight unsaid, under the radar, that as a minority, as a brown woman, really all I’m doing is voicing my authenticity. “White men go anywhere and everywhere in their imagination. Google I/O 2023: From open to all Bard to AI in Gmail, Google has a good plan to win the AI war Notice issued to SpiceJet on aircraft lessor's insolvency petitionĪmong other things, readers criticised her for voicing protagonists of different demographics. Her next three novels, Alentejo Blue, In the Kitchen, and Untold Story, were all conceptual and thematic departures from the first, a shift which unsettled readers, not matching their expectations of the writer. The book, about a Bangladeshi woman living in London, became an instant hit, receiving positive critical reviews, and was even nominated for the Man Booker Prize. Ali created a sensational buzz in the publishing world even before Brick Lane came out in 2003. This fear, and break from writing, are largely a result of being boxed in as a BAME (black, Asian and minority ethnic) writer, after her debut Brick Lane. And I was just too wrapped up in thoughts of ‘this is a failure, you’re no good, stop writing’,” she says. “I started twice, novels which are now in my bottom drawer. Given the long break she’s taken from writing, coming back to it was scary for her, in one way.

It’s not coming before Christmas,” she adds. “My agent thinks it’s coming before Christmas.

“Maybe it’s a superstition or something,” she says with a laugh, in an interview with Firstpost, during the Tata Lit Live! Festival in Mumbai. Beyond that, she can’t say more whilst the writing process is still under way. It’s contemporary, set between 20, in London, about two families with very different backgrounds. Monica Ali can’t bring herself to say much about her upcoming book.

Author of brick lane