Monica Ali was born in Dhaka in 1967, but her family left in 1971 during the civil war. She was brought up in Bolton, before studying Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Wadham College, Oxford.
Ali worked in marketing, then for a design and branding agency. After she and her husband had a son, Felix, Ali decided to turn her talents to writing, starting with short stories.
When their daughter, Shumi, was five months old, Ali ventured upon a novel – ‘Brick Lane’. It took her eighteen months to complete; however she was offered a two-book deal on the basis of just the first two chapters, and subsequently was named on the 2003 Granta list of twenty promising Young British Novelists before the novel had even reached publication stage!
The judges were so impressed by the manuscript that they were unanimous in their decision to include her.
![Polling Station signage [Image: kagey b under CC-BY-NC-ND licence]](/openlearn/files/ole/ole_images/places/general-urban-scenes/polling-station-sign/polling station sign_0_0.jpg)
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