FROM THE HEART

Monica Ali, the acclaimed author of Brick Lane shares about the prejudice in publishing, her much-anticipated new tale of two families in contemporary Britain, and why it has taken her 10 years to write.

-  Charlotte Brook

'In the Ghorami household, sex was never mentioned,' reads the first line of Monica Ali's new novel Love I Marriage. We find ourselves in north London, 2016, where two very different families are about to have dinner together to celebrate the engagement of their son and daughter, who are both junior doctors. Yasmin is taking her loving, traditional Bengali parents to meet her fiancé Jack's mother, a feminist firebrand and provocative media figure, who is, in turn, majestic and monstrous in her pursuit of a multi-cultural, liberal, metropolitan existence.

So begins a big, magnificent story chronicling a revelatory year in the life of two lovers, two families, and two cultures. "It's about who we are, and how we love in modern Britain," a twinkly-eyed, elegant Monica says when we meet, wearing a sculptural cotton dress from the Friday Sari Project, her hair loosely tied back. She is reflective and thoughtful, with a ready, gravelly laugh. "It looks at what love and marriage mean to different cultures, different generations, but also at shame and guilt, betrayal and truth, and, maybe, makes us think about our prejudices about race, class, feminism, and identity." She pauses. "But most importantly, I hope that it is a good, old-fashioned, compulsive read and an entertaining story!" I am not alone in believing she has achieved this the book has already been snapped up to be adapted into a BBC television series after a hotly-contested auction.