Having completely been bypassed by the White Teeth hype machine when it happened, I am determined to get on the ground floor of 2003's Big Thing and have started reading Brick Lane by Monica Ali last night. Not sure if it's out yet, but being an important and highly revered journalist I have a preview copy. So far so Zadie... Bangladeshi woman who had difficult birth is married to man and settles in London's Tower Hamlets in 1985. Some nice bits of writing, only a few pages in so far.
Ali was named as one of Granta's most important writers under 40 a couple of months back before Brick Lane was even published. It's her first book and was picked up by the publishers on the strength of the first three words (okay, I exaggerate, but not far off). Anyone any thoughts on this so far? |
