She is a Trustee of the St Giles Trust, a charity that helps marginalised and disadvantaged people in the UK.When a couple decide to get married it's a nerve-wracking experience arranging for the parents to meet for the first time. She has taught creative writing at Columbia University and, from 2015 to 2018, was Distinguished Writer in Residence at Surrey University. She is a Fellow of the RSA and the Orwell Prize. Monica has been a guest editor of BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, and is an occasional presenter of Radio 4 ‘s, A Point of View. Her writing has appeared in numerous publications including The Guardian, the Times, The New Yorker, and the New York Times. She has judged several literary prizes including as Chair of the Asian Man Booker.

Writing in The Financial Times, Suzi Feay traced Ali’s trajectory: ‘With the publication of Brick Lane, Monica Ali was welcomed as a bright new voice, peeling back the walls of a decrepit housing estate and revealing the complex lives of the Bangladeshi community within…As subsequent novels appeared, it became clear that Ali was a different sort of novelist altogether a more universal voice, a writer who disappeared entirely within the world of her fiction, confounding those who initially saw her as a mouthpiece for a particular constituency… Untold Story is her fourth novel, and different again from the other three…Now she poses an intriguing question: what if Diana, Princess of Wales, hadn’t died after all and had instead invented a new life for herself…A thoughtful, compassionate and utterly untrashy piece of work.’ Monica Ali was chosen as one of Granta’s 2003 Best of Young British Novelists. Her subject matter has ranged widely, from an immigrant community in London to a rural village in Portugal, from a decaying northern mill town to a multicultural London hotel kitchen, and most recently a ‘what if’ novel, based on Princess Diana. She is the author of four books, Brick Lane (shortlisted for the Man Booker prize), Alentejo Blue, In the Kitchen, and Untold Story. Monica Ali is an award-winning, bestselling writer whose work has been translated into 26 languages. Monica Ali was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2019.

Monica ali