Writer Monica Ali explains how her latest novel explores faith, hope, love and custard
Monica Ali © John Fol
Any author who has become a success will know that promoting books is as much a part of the job as actually writing them. Kate Atkinson, Alexander McCall Smith and Monica Ali are just three of the authors currently travelling the festival routes, with Monica Ali taking part in Bristol’s Festival of Ideas last Friday, while still jetlagged after touring in Australia.
The festival aims to get people to explore ideas on a broad range of subjects, and Monica Ali’s discussion and book reading raised questions about multiculturalism, national identity and, um custard.
“My latest book, In the Kitchen, is about faith, hope, love and custard,” she said, “When proteins get heated up and up, they vibrate more and more, until they begin to break down. And that’s exactly what happens to my main character, Gabriel. When he feels the pressure, he slowly begins to unravel.”
In the Kitchen
“Everyone takes different things away from a book. I look for the light within the dark, the comedy in the tragedy. In many ways each of my three books are very different, but in other ways they share a lot of similarities. Inevitably my interests stay the same. I suppose my preoccupations are the themes of belonging, and home and what that means. With In the Kitchen I was interested to explore the difference between generations - how values in the work place have changed and what that means for an individual’s personal values.”
As Monica said, there’s no doubt each person present took something different away from her words, but the one thing each of us shared was the fact that the event got us thinking.
For further details please visit www.ideasfestival.co.uk or www.watershed.co.uk
Monica’s books are available from Amazon.co.uk.
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