MONICA ALI ON THE BOOKS THAT HAVE INFLUENCED HER
EMMA BY JANE AUSTEN. Emma is the most superb creation, right from the opening sentence: “Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever and rich ... had lived nearly 21 years in the world with very little to distress or vex her.” And, of course, we know from that that she’s about to find a few things to vex and trouble her. Austen said in a letter, I think to her niece, that she was going to write a heroine that nobody else would like, but that she was already very much in love with this character, Emma. And Emma is wrong about so much. She spends almost the entirety of the novel meddling and making assumptions and trying to plan these love matches between people and she’s almost always wrong. And yet Austen is wrong, we do come to really love Emma in spite of all her flaws and idiosyncrasies and wrong-headedness. She’s definitely an inspiration for Yasmin as a character.
A HOUSE FOR MR BISWAS BY VS NAIPAUL is the best tragic comedy ever written and is also a sideways look at colonialism and race and religion. I read it in my teens and I love it still. Its humour is really important. When you’re dealing with serious issues, it’s essential to find the comedy because, without that, our capacity, the human capacity for self-delusion, is almost limitless. But with humour we can see all the folly of our human striving and just embrace it with compassion.
NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR BY GEORGE ORWELL. I was 13 when I first read it. I heard doublespeak all around me and naturally as a teenager you’re inclined to think adults are hypocritical. But it also made me think about news in a more questioning way and is probably why I ended up studying philosophy, politics and economics. At the risk of stating the obvious, it is as relevant now as ever. I mean “thoughtcrime” could be a term invented today in the culture wars.
The book that really influenced me in writing ‘Love Marriage’ was IN THE REALM OF HUNGRY GHOSTS BY GABOR MATÉ, a medical doctor and psychotherapist. This book is a radical reframing of how we view human development. He’s an addiction specialist who makes deep and surprising connections between an individual’s psychology and global issues, between the spiritual and the medical, between mental illness and politics.