If the best we can say is how we feel about something, we turn from reason to a type of emotivism in which the frameworks for moral and political judgments collapse. It is a post-Enlightenment phenomenon that has an invidious effect not only at this relatively local level, but also on the world stage. Neo-conservative rhetoric on good and evil leads the way. In Bush and Blair's war against Iraq, the presence or otherwise of WMD was simply a sideshow. "I only know what I believe," said Blair. Never let facts get in the way of how you feel. Fiction is now, apparently, the place for fact; in real life it shouldn't intrude.

Beyond this moving portrait of the domestic world, I cannot think of another novel in which the politics of our times are caught with such easy vividness. So many novelists either ignore politics altogether, or else they treat politics as journalists do, by making arguments rather than creating situations. But here, everything political that the characters say or do seems to spring from their own hopes and disappointments, so that - even when they are reacting to September 11 or the Oldham riots - it never feels as if Ali is simply using them to illustrate a point. Particularly impressive are the precisely observed descriptions of the meetings of Karim's group of local Muslims, the "Bengal Tigers", where girls in headscarves and boys in Nike fleeces argue about whether they should engage with global jihad or local injustices.The story of her overnight success is well-known. Even before Ali had completed her famous debut she was signed her up, after her publisher had seen only five chapters of her first draft. Granta reiterated this faith in her skill as a novelist, when it based its decision to name her as one of its 'Best of Young British Novelists' in 2003 on just the manuscript. Since this early popular and critical success, Ali has shown an admirable willingness to wrong-foot and surprise her readers, with novels that have often ranged far beyond the limiting canvas of the ‘British multicultural novel’ template that she helped to establish. a b Lewis, Paul (29 July 2006). " 'You sanctimonious philistine' – Rushdie v Greer, the sequel". The Guardian . Retrieved 29 July 2006. This highly evolved, accomplished book is a reminder of how exhilarating novels can be: it opened up a world whose contours I could recognize, but which I needed Monica Ali to make me understand' Observer In any case, if we were to take the "authenticity" requirement seriously it must apply to everyone equally. What right does Roddy Doyle have to write a novel from the perspective of a woman who suffers domestic abuse when he is not a battered woman? Taken to its logical outcome, men are not "allowed" to write about women, or women about men, and we are left only with memoir and autobiography, for which admittedly there is a strong demand these days, perhaps because nothing else is authentic enough. Media distortion is a part of everyday life. What do you expect? We shrug it off. Perhaps that's all we can do and continue to accept the consequences. In this instance the consequences for the "community leaders" were, as one commentator put it, in "foolishly confirming the prejudices they fear others hold about them". ("This is not a fiction book," one was quoted as saying.) The worrying part is that, in failing to provide a balanced picture, the media veered towards tarring an entire community - wholly unfairly - with the same brush.

As I watched the rough cut I spent the whole time either thinking about what had been left out (despite telling myself to leave the book outside the door) or being thrilled to hear dialogue from the novel spoken by the actors. In other words, I was a hopeless viewer, and it was only after I'd left the room that I realised the film might have some special quality of its own.What could not be changed must be borne. And since nothing could be changed, everything had to be borne. This principle ruled her life. It was mantra, fettle, and challenge. Amid the changing times, there remain some fixtures in the East. The newly renovated Whitechapel Art Gallery stands tall and elegant. It’s not uncommon to see the artists Gilbert and George, local residents for decades, popping into the Golden Heart Pub, while a woman with her head covered, laden with shopping, disappears down Hanbury Street. It will be interesting to see how the Somali community, the latest migrant community fleeing from strife in the Horn of Africa, will make its mark on the area. As discussed in my book Avenues, there are already tensions developing between Somalis and the more established Bangladeshi enclaves. With only an hour to spare before they were to go to the airport as a family, Nazneen tells Chanu that she is staying behind. He is grieved but understands, just as she understands his reason for going. They hold each other, overwhelmed with sadness. Monica Ali quietly documents the harrowing scenes of 9/11 as seen by millions the world over. Chanu is mesmerised, glued to the TV, and his rants have an ominous foreboding of the Islamic extremism that has become pervasive. His wife, Nazneen, is bewildered, such is her detachment from the outside world. It is events like these that begin to dispel the stillness that she previously inhabited. Hasina writes to Nazneen often to tell her about her life with her young husband, Malek, who works on the railway and is, in Hasina’s opinion, exceptionally smart and talented. Hasina intimates in her letters that Malek wishes she were a better wife, but it’s not until Hasina leaves him for Dhaka and a job as a sewing woman in a garment factory that Nazneen finds out the truth: Malek had taken to beating her, so Hasina fled her marriage and threw herself under the protection of Mr. Chowdhury, who becomes her landlord. Since Hasina is often short of money, Mr. Chowdhury charges her discounted rent, saying she is like a daughter to him.

I've seen it again since, and watched it for the first time on a huge screen and with an audience in Toronto. There were around 600 people in the theatre and I confess to concentrating almost as hard on them as the film. They laughed, gasped and snivelled discreetly (or in some cases not so discreetly) and for the first time in my life I began to believe in the wisdom of crowds. With her next novel, Ali returned to the broad ‘condition of England’ sweep and energised migrant environment of her debut. As the title suggests, Into the Kitchen (2009) used the hotel restaurant in central London as one microcosm from which Ali could range broadly over her now familiar themes of national identity, family and belonging. Scenes from this setting are set against the very different world of a northern mill town where the father of Gabriel Lighfoot, the London chef, is living out his last days.From 2015 to 2020, Ali served as a trustee for the Saint Giles Trust, a charity which helps ex-offenders and other marginalised people, and wrote about the need to help newly-released prisoners. [17] In the months after Chanu's departure, Nazneen finds a newfound sense of independence and freedom as she works to provide for herself and her children. Meanwhile, Hasina finds a fresh start and the possibility of love with another man in Bangladesh. The novel ends with Nazneen going ice skating for the first time, symbolizing her dream of finally leading an independent life. Monica Ali begins the story with the birth of Nazneen in a Bangladeshi village. The untimely death of her mother pushes Nazneen towards an unconventional path. Set between 1985 and 2002, the narrative focuses on three main characters all living on an imaginary East End council estate. Nazneen is introduced as the submissive, village, virgin bride sent to London to begin a new life with Chanu, her rotund, older, opinionated husband. The third character is Karim, a second-generation streetwise Sylheti ‘lad’ who becomes the ‘lover’ of Nazneen and is swiftly radicalised after 9/11.

Ali's observations of Nazneen, her family and friends, is precise, true and can only emanate out of deep empathy, the quality that gives this first novel its warmth and humour...Ali writes with such confidence and with the kind of control a much more experienced novelist would envy' Independent

Media Reviews

The film was released in the UK on 16 November 2007, and in the US by Sony Pictures Classics in a limited release on 20 June 2008. The DVD Region 2 release occurred on 10 March 2008 and the Region 1 DVD of the film was released on 13 January 2009. Two plus two equals four and nothing over, as the Gradgrinds would say. They measure human experience with a ruler and a set square. But a writer must - strange, that this needs to be said - imagine the world in a different way. That is the job. That is what we do. And is this not literature's gift? Its contribution? To see through another's eyes, to take another perspective, and to take the reader along on that journey, goes to the very purpose, the moral heart of the work. It is the reason why I write. Later, Nazneen takes a train to see Karim to tell him that they need to end their relationship. She has come to understand that she’d pieced his personality together like one would a quilt, making him up out of what she’d hoped he would be. Now the seams are showing, and she knows that they do not have a future together. For the most part, he takes the news well, assuming that she is breaking up with him because she can longer bear the thought of sinning against God.