Lit Talk: Author Monica Ali

Born in Bangladesh and raised in England, Monica Ali is the worldly young author of the award-winning novel Brick Lane, which examines the British immigrant experience through the story of a Bangladeshi family. Her recently published third novel, In the Kitchen, begins with a mysterious death in a basement and goes on to examine the current crisis of London, with its social strata, its diverse population, and the increasing pressures of the modern world. The author continues her trend of social commentary while remaining true to her fast-paced storytelling and unforgettable characters. In this interview with Barnes & Noble Monica Ali talks about one of the things she knows best: books.
***

B&N: What was the book that most influenced your life, and why?

Monica: The Bell by Iris Murdoch. I was ten years old, I think, when my mother took me to our local town library and, instead of leading me as usual to the children’s or “young adults’” sections, headed for the main fiction department and selected this for me. I felt as if I had been initiated. I remember being riveted by this book. It invited me to engage with it in new and different ways to anything I had read before. I was delighted to have to wrestle with it. For the first time, I was aware of being asked to consider what lay behind the surface of the characters and their dialogues. Some of that dialogue would perhaps make me wince a little now. But as a young girl it excited me a great deal, and I kept on going back to those library shelves.

B&N: What are your ten favorite books, and what makes them special to you?

Monica: These are in no particular order, and the list would probably change a bit depending on which day you ask me. But today’s top ten is as below:

-Emma by Jane Austen – A favorite from my school days, and it would always hold its place my heart. Austen’s characters are always devastatingly good, and Emma is, for me, her best creation.

-A House for Mr Biswas by V. S. Naipaul – His masterpiece. I love the blend of comedy and tragedy, and every time I read it, I ache afresh for Biswas.

-A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole – The author committed suicide after failing to find a publisher for this book, which went on to win the Pulitzer after his mother persevered in getting the book into print. It is the funniest book I have ever read.

-A Gesture Life by Chang-rae Lee – I picked this up from a bookshop display, knowing nothing about it, and bought it on a whim. I started it on the train on the way home and then read it through the night. Lee’s beautiful, understated prose is so finely controlled it makes me want to cry with envy.

-Wittgenstein by Ray Monk – I first read this on holiday sitting on a Portuguese cliff top overlooking the Atlantic. What I love about this book is how clever it makes me feel. Of course, it is Monk who is the clever one, allowing his readers to approach Wittgenstein’s work without the onset of a calamitous headache.

-Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov – Scarcely need to explain this one.

-A Quiet Life by Beryl Bainbridge – Technically perhaps not her best book (I’d go for Every Man for Himself or Master Georgie) but a personal favorite. Bainbridge draws heavily on her own difficult childhood here and re-creates beautifully the tensions of an ordinary unhappy home.

-Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy – I first read this in my early teens, dangling upside-down off the end of my bed. My mother used to come in and warn about the perils of all the blood rushing to my head, but I ignored her. I think I was trying to create a physical intensity to match the emotional intensity of that first reading.

-Swami and Friends by R. K. Narayan – My father introduced me to Narayan, and I’m still in love with his audaciously simple prose.

-The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene – I could have gone for a number of other Greene titles. Perhaps my fondness for this one derives from having read it in Mexico, where the novel is set.

B&N: What are your favorite books to give and get as gifts?

Monica: I get really excited if I think I’m going to introduce somebody to a writer they haven’t found before and I think they’ll love. My favorite books to get as gifts are any that the giver is messianic about.

B&N: Who are your favorite writers, and what makes their writing special?

Monica: I go through crushes. I’m a big Updike fan. He has a special gift of making the ordinary extraordinary. I was blown away by Annie Proulx when I first discovered her. I’d been reading Hemingway and Carver immediately beforehand and then gorged myself on her luscious texts. But I come back to Carver again and again. I like Beryl Bainbridge a great deal, and she is a writer who absolutely demands to be read a second, third, and fourth time. I admire her great courage in leaving so much unsaid and asking the reader to really engage her brain.
***

Monica Ali will be reading at the following locations in the next few days:

Tuesday, June 16 at 7:30 p.m.
Barnes & Noble
1972 Broadway
Lincoln Center
New York, NY 10023
212.595.6859

Wednesday, June 17 at 12:30 p.m.
Bryant Park Outdoor Reading Room
42nd St. (between 5th & 6th Aves.)
New York, NY 10018

Thursday, June 18 at 6:00 p.m.
Writers on Record
Harold Washington Library Center
400 S. State St.
Chicago, IL 60605
312.747.4300

--Emmaline

Photo by John Foley/Opale