Monica Ali FRSL (born 20 October 1967) is a British writer of Bangladeshi and English heritage. In 2003, she was selected as one of the "Best of Young British Novelists" by Granta magazine based on her unpublished manuscript; her debut novel, Brick Lane, was published later that year. It was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. It was adapted as a 2007 film of the same name. She has also published three other novels. Her fifth novel, Love Marriage, was published by Virago Press in February 2022 and became an instant Sunday Times bestseller. Early life and education Ali was born in Dhaka, East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) in 1967 to a Bangladeshi father and an English mother. When she was three, her family moved to Bolton, England. Her father is originally from the district of Mymensingh. She went to Bolton School and then studied philosophy, politics and economics at Wadham College, Oxford. Brick Lane Brick Lane is a street at the heart of London's Bangladeshi community. Ali's 2003 novel of the same name follows the life of Nazneen, a Bangladeshi woman who moves to London at the age of 18, to marry an older man, Chanu. They live in Tower Hamlets. At first her English consists only of sorry and thank you; the novel explores her life and adaptations in the community, as well as the character of Chanu, and their larger ethnic community. An additional narrative strand covers the experiences of Nazneen's sister, Hasina, through the device of her correspondence. Reception The Observer described Chanu as "one of the novel's foremost miracles: twice her age, with a face like a frog, a tendency to quote Hume and the boundless doomed optimism of the self-improvement junkie, he is both exasperating and, to the reader at least, enormously loveable." Geraldine Bedell wrote in The Observer that the "most vivid image of the marriage is of her [Nazneen] cutting her husband's corns, a task she seems required to perform with dreadful regularity. [Her husband] is pompous and kindly, full of plans, none of which ever come to fruition, and then of resentment at Ignorant Types who don't promote him or understand his quotations from Shakespeare or his Open University race, ethnicity and class module." The novel was well received by critics in the United Kingdom and the United States, and shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. However, the novel provoked controversy within