To the great surprise of friends and family, including her father, Hamid, Nazneen survives and grows up into a plain, thoughtful child who, like her mother, decides that most everything in life should be left to God. Instead of taking Nazneen to a hospital, Rupban decides to leave her daughter to her fate. Everyone on hand at the birth, including Rupban’s sister-in-law, Mumtaz, and the village midwife, Banesa, thinks Nazneen dead until she begins kicking and screaming, albeit in a weak and listless way that suggests she could probably use immediate medical attention. Brick Lane by Monica Ali begins in the village of Gouripur in rural Bangladesh, where Rupban is going into labor two months early with the birth of her eldest daughter, Nazneen. Monica Ali’s latest novel is Love Marriage.

The organisation became independent in 1998 and continues to empower women and girls to achieve their full potential. Monica is Patron of Hopscotch Women’s Centre, a charity that was originally set up by Save the Children to support ethnic minority families who had come to join their partners in the UK. Monica is currently adapting her fifth novel, Love Marriage, for television in conjunction with New Pictures. She has taught creative writing at Columbia University, New York, where she was a visiting Professor, and from 2015 to 2018 she was Distinguished Writer in Residence at the University of Surrey.īrick Lane was turned into feature film produced by Film Four, starring Tannishtha Chatterjee, directed by Sarah Gavron and written by Abi Morgan. has been a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.

She has been nominated for, amongst others, the Booker Prize, the George Orwell Prize, the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and in the U.S. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and in 2003 was named as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists. She is the author of five books: Brick Lane, Alentejo Blue, In the Kitchen, Untold Story and Love Marriage. Monica Ali is a bestselling writer whose work has been translated into 26 languages.

Monica ali