| Kia Abdullah | |
|---|---|
Kia Abdullah |
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| Born | 17 May 1982 Tower Hamlets, East London, United Kingdom |
| Occupation | Novelist |
| Nationality | British |
| Ethnicity | Bangladeshi |
| Education | BSc Computer science |
| Alma mater | Central Foundation Girls' School Queen Mary, University of London |
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www.kia-abdullah.com |
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Kia Abdullah (17 May 1982) is a British-Bangladeshi author and journalist. She contributed to the guardian.co.uk website Comment is Free from 2008 to 2010[1] and has written two novels: Life, Love and Assimilation (Adlibbed, 2006)[2] and Child's Play (Revenge Ink, 2009).[3]
Contents |
Kia Abdullah wrote her first novel Life, Love and Assimilation[4] after graduating from Queen Mary, University of London with a Bachelor of Science degree in computer science. The novel debuted among praise and controversy in equal measures. The Bangladeshi community, including members of Abdullah’s own family, denounced the book due to its no-holds-barred description of the drugs problem in Tower Hamlets along with the inclusion of several sexually graphic scenes.[5]
Despite the controversy, Abdullah remained firm in her view that taboo issues should be explored: “I have a voice and I’ll say what I want with it. I am not backing down. I am not staging a retreat. Let people say what they want to say.”[6]
Life, Love and Assimilation, drew comparisons with Monica Ali's Brick Lane.[7] Despite feeling “honoured” by this comparison to Ali, Abdullah says, “I feel that we are being pigeonholed together simply because of the content of our novels.” [8]
Due to the success of the novel, Abdullah was offered a position at Asian Woman Magazine, a monthly glossy lifestyle title aimed at women from the South-Asian community. After a year at the magazine, Abdullah left to freelance and write second novel Child’s Play, a psychological crime thriller published in December 2009. Subsequently, Abdullah was offered, and accepted, a role as columnist for Asiana magazine.[9] In addition to writing for the magazine, Abdullah writes on a range of topics from politics to relationships for the Guardian newspaper.
Abdullah has interviewed a range of prominent Asian actors and musicians including Meera Syal, Anoushka Shankar and Nitin Sawhney. She is an occasional guest on Radio 2’s Jeremy Vine Show and has appeared in documentaries and news reports for the BBC[10] and Channel 4.[11]
On 1 July 2011 Abdullah attracted widespread criticism when she tweeted that she did not feel sympathy over the news of the deaths of three British students who had died in a bus accident whilst on a gap year in Thailand. In a second tweet she added that she smiled when she read that they had double-barrelled names.[12] She later deleted the tweets and apologized on Twitter for being "stupid and very heartless"[13] and then at greater length on her personal website.[14]
Kia Abdullah was born and raised in the borough of Tower Hamlets in the East End of London. She is of Bangladeshi descent; her parents moved to Britain from the Sylhet region of Bangladesh during the 1970s.