Brick Lane author Monica Ali has said it felt like an “obliteration of the self” when people were confused that she chose to write a novel about what might have happened if Diana, Princess of Wales had not died in a car accident, rather than about “brown people”.
The novelist said she became depressed when her 2011 book Untold Story was met with “bafflement”. She told The Big Issue: “I think I was really naive in thinking that I could write about whatever I wanted, like a white male writer can.”
