Monica Ali Bolton, England. Her father is originally from the district of Mymensingh. She went to Bolton School and then studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Wadham College, Oxford. "Brick Lane" – named after Brick Lane, a street at the heart of London's Bangladeshi community – follows the life of Nazneen, a Bangladeshi woman who moves to London at the age of 18, to marry an older man, Chanu. They live in Tower Hamlets. At first her English consists only of "sorry" and "thank you;" the novel explores her life and adaptations in the community, as well as the character of Chanu,
East End of London in popular culture as "White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings" (1987). A more realistic fictionalisation on the contemporary gentrification of the area, and the rise of the yuppie, is provided by Penelope Lively in "Passing On" (1989) and "City of the Mind" (1991) and by P. D. James in "Original Sin" (1994). Emblematic of the current worldwide clash of civilisations between West and East, of which the East End has historically been a microcosm, are Monica Ali's (1967– ) novel "Brick Lane" (2003), and Salman Rushdie's fantastic and controversial "The Satanic Verses" (1988) which also uses Brick Lane as a location. One of the earliest