Monica Ali was born in Dhaka in 1967, and came with her parents to England
when she was 3. Her mother is English and her father Bangladeshi.
She grew up in Bolton but has spent most of
her life in London. She attended Bolton Girls' School and Wadham
College, Oxford. She is married to a management consultant.
She worked in publishing and design before having their two
children. She started to write during the brief periods when her
son and daughter were both asleep. She was named one of Granta's
"Best Young British Novelists" in 2003. Her first novel, Brick Lane
was published by Doubleday in the summer of 2003.
