Monica Ali is a British writer of Bangladeshi origin. She is the author of Brick Lane, her debut novel, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction in 2003. Ali was voted Granta's Best of Young British Novelists on the basis of the unpublished manuscript. Ali was born in Dhaka, Bangladesh to a Bangladeshi father and English mother, moving to Bolton, England at the age of three, where she was raised. Her father is originally from the district of Mymensingh. She went to Bolton School and then studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Wadham College, University of Oxford. She... lives in South London with her husband, Simon Torrance, a management consultant, and their two children, Felix and Shumi. Ali opposes the British government's attempt to introduce the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006, something she writes about in her contribution to Free Expression Is No Offence, a collection of essays published by Penguin in November 2005.
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