Brick Lane's Monica Ali aims to finish new book by summer
By Elena Moya
CARTAGENA/LONDON (Reuters Life!) - Novelist Monica Ali, author of Brick Lane, also made into a movie, hopes to finish her new novel by the summer.
Ali, 40, who started writing as an escape from domestic life and childcare, says she tries to avoid schmoozing to sit and write at home in South East London.
The mother of two talked to Reuters during the Hay Festival in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, where she participated.
Q: When did you decide to become a writer?
A: I never decided it, I just started writing when my first child was born, with the demands from home, I had to escape, writing late at nights. I would breast-feed in the middle of the night and then go back to writing.
Q: Who inspired you for the character of Nazneem in Brick Lane? (Bangladesh-native Nazneem travels to an arranged marriage in East London)
A: My mother; she's white, from old England, and travelled to settle in Dhaka, Bangladesh, facing outright dislocation, the language, religion.
Q: What can you tell us of the book you're writing now? Continued...
