Arts

Art rendezvous 
Concept of freedom

Reviews

Monica Ali
Meera Syal
Hong Ying
Rani Manicka
Dr Jung Chang

Poetry

Wailings of love - Nandini Jawli
Tears in chapatti - Nandini Jawli
I would like to be a dot - Moniza Alvi
What - Junior J
Hang on a minute! - Neema
Lava in my heart - Neema

Fiction

When Sun Set - Manju Chaudhuri
A Monologue - Gopali Ghosh
Jamaican T shirt - Nandini Jawli
Quagmire - Nandini Jawli
Daddy  - Smita Singh
Nothing to Hide - Smita Singh
Expressions - Smita Singh
Coffee Break - Smita Singh
Chasm - Smita Singh
Shout - Smita Singh
In hell - Smita Singh
Futility of life - Smita Singh

Resources

gdhsC

Monica Ali

Monica Ali was born in Dhaka in 1967, and came with her parents to England when she was 3. Her mother is English and her father Bangladeshi. She grew up in Bolton but has spent most of her life in London. She attended Bolton Girls' School and Wadham College, Oxford. She is married to a management consultant. She worked in publishing and design Co. before having their two children. 

She started to write during the brief periods when her son and daughter were both asleep. She was named one of Granta's "Best Young British Novelists" in 2003. Her first novel, Brick Lane was published by Doubleday in the summer of 2003 which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction in 2003.

The novel caused controversy within the Bangladeshi community in Britain because of what certain groups perceived as negative portrayal of people from the Sylhet region. Parts of the community were opposed to plans by Ruby Films to film parts of the novel in the Brick Lane area, and formed the "Campaign Against Monica Ali's Film Brick Lane". The film, starring well-known Indian actress Tannishtha Chatterjee, was successfully made and distributed both in the UK and internationally.

The campaign was allegedly supported by Germaine Greer, who wrote that: "As British people know little and care less about the Bangladeshi people in their midst, their first appearance as characters in an English novel had the force of a defining caricature ... Some of the Sylhetis of Brick Lane did not recognise themselves. Bengali Muslims smart under an Islamic prejudice that they are irreligious and disorderly, the impure among the pure, and here was a proto-Bengali writer with a Muslim name, portraying them as all of that and more." Greer's involvement has angered some within the British literary community. Salman Rushdie has called it "philistine, sanctimonious, and disgraceful, but ... not unexpected".
Activists told The Guardian they intended to burn copies of Ali's book during a rally to be held on July 30. But the demonstration was uneventful.

A review by Sukhdev Sandhu in the Guardian starts with an intriguing sentence, 'Bricklane used to be the home of the dead.' Full review is here.

Her new novel In the Garden is coming out soon. Our best wishes are with her.

By The Editor

New series of posts

Hi all

I hope all our readers including our members are busy writing and of course reading a lot too. We are planning to start a new series of posts about various known and unknown Asian women writers to inspire and motivate us all.

The posts would be published every month dedicated to one of the Asian women writers. All are welcome to suggest and contribute.

Take care

by Editor

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Tammy Ho

Tammy Ho Lai-Ming is a Hong Kong-born poet and editor currently based in London, UK. Among other things, she edited Hong Kong U Writing: An Anthology (School of English, The University of Hong Kong) in 2006 and co-edited Love & Lust (Chameleon Press) in 2008. 

She is also a founding co-editor of Cha: An Asian Literary Journal (est. 2007), the first Hong Kong-based online literary quarterly in English. Tammy's own creative works have been published in many places and her poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. 

She is now pursuing a PhD degree in English Literature (focusing on Neo-Victorian fiction) at King's College London. More at www.sighming.com. 

Good news abounds!!

Redbridge Local Authority

Updating you on the post regarding the meetings with the local council, the good news is...well any guesses?! The Redbridge council will be supporting us via the Ilford Central library. Their support is definitely going to open new avenues for us. We hope to promote our group on a wider scale with their help.

A big thank you to them!

Three cheers for all of us, Hip Hip Hurray! Hip Hip Hurray!! Hip Hip Hurray!!!

Here is to new beginnings.

Take care and Happy writing.

by the Editor

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