Monica Ali
                     
About / Untold Story / Titles / News / Contacts /


'Haunting and intensely readable, this is something between a thriller and a ghost story'


Lady Antonia Fraser


Click here for further review coverage

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Untold Story will be published by
Scribner in the U.S. on 28th June.

 

 

 

Click here to buy the book.

 


'Monica Ali has always been a brilliant and provocative writer, but Untold Story is not only a gripping read but a compassionate portrait of a woman in turmoil – her finest novel yet.'

Gary Shteyngart, author of Super Sad True Love Story

'A terrific, clever, multi-layered, and subtle book (and let's not forget – hugely entertaining!)'
Joanne Harris, author of Chocolat and Blueeyedboy

'It is always said that Princess Diana was hunted and haunted, that her story contained the seeds of a contemporary myth. It was obvious that only the imagination of a first-rate novelist could master that material and make it fully and unforgettably alive. We now have the book we have been waiting for in Monica Ali's Untold Story. It is a beautiful, gripping accomplishment, a treat for the heart and the head, and will be a joy to readers who believe in the possibility that a book can transform your basic sense of life.'
Andrew O'Hagan, Man Booker shortlisted author of Our Fathers, and The Life and Opinions of Maf the Dog

 


 

‘Young, old, male, female, Portuguese, English, Monica Ali’s portrayal of character is consistently convincing. The book [Alentejo Blue] has a wide emotional range; she does pathos, bitterness, joy, cynicism, tenderness, loss, regret. Our sympathies are constantly aroused, we are given tantalising glimpses into the inner worlds of these richly varied people.’
London Evening Standard

‘Monica Ali’s craftsmanship is superb and her descriptions [in Alentejo Blue] are rich with quirky, sad, funny and lovely details…The beauty of her writing gives Ali a starring role in this literary generation.’
USA Today

‘Monica Ali views the inhabitants of her Mamarrosa with a warm and sympathetic eye, everyone has a vivid life on the page. It is also part of Ali’s gift that she never allows the reader to come to easy conclusions. The village in Alentejo Blue is no rural idyll – but neither is it bereft of pleasure or culture. The same compassionate respect for complexity governs her creation of character. As a novelist,
Ali is not like her fictional novelist, Stanton, who pals around with the Potts family in order to “see the demons at work.” ’
Toronto Star

‘The kitchen of the title is the Imperial Hotel in central London and Monica Ali’s dazzling accounts of its manic goings-on [in In the Kitchen] make Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential seem as genteel as Fanny Craddock.’
Sunday Times

‘All the ingredients for a sizzling tale are present [in In the Kitchen]: A sudden death that may or may not be accidental. A middle-age chef on the verge of a breakdown. Sexual obsession. An illicit affair. A nefarious plot involving human smuggling…Ted’s bewilderment about Britain’s loss of its manufacturing base and its consumerist culture, feels downright prescient in the face of the last year’s global meltdown…Monica Ali nails the clash of cultures between the British and Pakistani immigrants.’
Boston Globe

‘[In the Kitchen] is a book about what it means to live in
the twenty-first century; what it means to be good in this world of moral and political quicksand…Monica Ali
is on top form.’
Scotsman

‘Absolutely modern in its sharply observed representation of a complex and fragmented society, this a novel replete with old-fashioned virtues…Monica Ali’s use of language is as versatile as her imagination. She can do lyrical description. She can do narrative of compelling tension and brevity. She can be sardonic about her character’s posturing and tender about their griefs.
Her dialogue is vigorous and idiosyncratic, and she rises with bravura to high points in the narrative. Brick Lane may be Monica Ali’s first novel, but it is written with a wisdom and skill that few authors attain in a lifetime.’
Sunday Times

‘Intensely gripping and involving…Monica Ali’s Brick Lane is a great achievement of the subtlest storytelling.’
The New Republic

‘Brick Lane is deeply rewarding…One feels the enabling weight of the 19th century, of a history of novels about people cut off from their origins, adrift in Europe’s
great cities…Monica Ali has an inborn generosity that cannot be learned.’
New York Times Book Review