Audiobooks by Monica Ali

Alentejo Blue is the story of the Portuguese village of Mamarrosa told through the lives of those who live there and those who are passing through - men and women, children and old people, locals, tourists and expatriates. An old man reflects on his long and troubled life in this beautiful and seemingly tranquil setting, and anticipates the return of Marco Afonso Rodrigues, the prodigal son of the village and a symbol of this now fast-changing world. The homecoming is the subject of much speculation, and when Marco does finally appear, villagers, tourists and expatriates are brought together and jealousies, passions and disappointments must inevitably collide...

Monica Ali (Author), Clare Wille (Narrator)

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Brick Lane

Nazneen is a teenager forced into an arranged marriage with an older man and misery seems to stretch ahead for her. Fearfully leaving the sultry oppression of her Bangladeshi village, Nazneen finds herself cloistered in a small flat in a high-rise block in the East End of London. Because she speaks no English, she is obliged to depend totally on her husband. But it becomes apparent that, of the two, she is the real survivor...

Monica Ali (Author), Meera Syal (Narrator)

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Untold Story: A Novel

When Princess Diana died in Paris's Alma tunnel, she was thirty-seven years old. Had she lived, she would turn fifty on July 1, 2011. Who would the beloved icon be if she were alive today? What would she be doing? And where? One of the most versatile and bold writers of our time, Monica Ali has imagined a different fate for Diana in her spectacular new novel, Untold Story. Diana's life and marriage were both fairy tale and nightmare rolled into one. Adored by millions, she suffered rejection, heartbreak, and betrayal. Surrounded by glamour and glitz and the constant attention of the press, she fought to carve a meaningful role for herself in helping the needy and dispossessed. The contradictions and pressures of her situation fueled her increasingly reckless behavior, but her stature and her connection with her public never ceased to grow. If Diana had lived, would she ever have found peace and happiness, or would the curse of fame always have been too great? Fast forward a decade after the (averted) Paris tragedy, and an Englishwoman named Lydia is living in a small, nondescript town somewhere in the American Midwest. She has a circle of friends: one owns a dress shop; one is a Realtor; another is a frenzied stay-at-home mom. Lydia volunteers at an animal shelter, and swims a lot. Her lover, who adores her, feels she won't let him know her. Who is she? Untold Story is about the cost of celebrity, the meaning of identity, and the possibility'or impossibility'of reinventing a life. Ali's fictional princess is beautiful, intrepid, and resourceful and has established a fragile peace. And then the past threatens to destroy her new life. Ali has created a riveting novel inspired by the cultural icon she calls "a gorgeous bundle of trouble."

Monica Ali (Author), Emma Fielding, Nicholas Farrell (Narrator)

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Untold Story

What if Princess Diana hadn't died? Diana's life and marriage were fairy tale and nightmare. Adored by millions, in her personal life she suffered heartbreak and betrayal. Within a life of privilege, she frequently felt trapped and alone. Constrained by protocol and precedent, she refused to follow the rules. Untold Story takes the life of the world's most famous woman as a point of departure, examining the past and imagining a future. The fictional princess who is the novel's heroine is at breaking point and, believing that the Establishment is plotting her assassination, she makes an irrevocable decision: to stage her own death and begin a new life under an assumed identity. After a period of intense upheaval, Lydia (as she is known) settles in small town America and establishes a fragile peace. It is threatened by thoughts of what she has lost: not the glamour and glitz of royalty but that which is most precious - her children. She is, at least, safe in the knowledge - having altered her appearance and ten years after her 'death' - that her secret will never be uncovered. But then a chance encounter with a member of the paparazzi robs her of that certainty. Will he recognize her? Should she flee or remain calm? Is there anyone she can trust and turn to, or will she inevitably be betrayed? Untold Story is a novel about family and friendship, intrigue and obsession, the meaning of identity, and the peculiar calamity of fame.

Monica Ali (Author), Emma Fielding, Nicholas Farrell (Narrator)

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In the Kitchen

Celebrated author Monica Ali was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and was named one of the 20 best young British novelists by Granta. In the Kitchen stars Gabe Lightfoot, an executive chef overseeing an eclectic kitchen staff-and dealing with a dead porter and an intriguing young lady from Belarus.

Monica Ali (Author), Jill Tanner (Narrator)

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Alentejo Blue

Monica Ali's stunning second book is a collection of stories set in the Alentejo province of Portugal, linked by characters and by a vivid sense of place and time. Teresa is a beautiful young girl from the village resisting an arranged marriage. The Potts are a family of ex-patriots trying to cobble a life together, at odds with one another and the world. Two young tourists engaged to be married confront each other's weaknesses for the first time, while an older woman tourist fantasizes about never returning home.

Monica Ali (Author), Anna Fields (Narrator)

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Brick Lane

This exciting and deeply moving debut novel follows the tumultuous life of Nazneen from her birth in a Bangladeshi village hut, to her arranged marriage to Chanu and the subsequent move to London's Tower HamletsNazneen's inauspicious entry to the world, an apparent stillbirth on the hard mud floor of a Bangladeshi village hut, imbues in her a sense of fatalism that she carries across continents when she is married off to Chanu. Her life in London's Tower Hamlets is, on the surface, calm. For years, keeping house and rearing children, she does what is expected of her. Yet Nazneen walks a tightrope stretched between her daughters' embarrassment and her husband's resentments. Chanu calls his elder daughter the little memsahib. 'I didn't ask to be born here,' say Shahana, with regular finality.Into that fragile peace walks Karim. He sets questions before her, of longing and belonging; he sparks in her a turmoil that reflects the community's own; he opens her eyes and directs her gaze - but what she sees, in the end, comes as a suprise to them both.While Nazneen journeys along her path of self-realization, a way haunted by her mother's ghost, her sister Hasina, back in Bangladesh, rushes headlong at her life, first making a 'love marriage', then fleeing her violent husband. Woven through the novel, Hasina's letters from Dhaka recount a world of overwhelming adversity. Shaped - yet ultimately not bound - by their landscapes and memories, both sisters struggle to dream themselves out of the rules prescribed for them.Beautifully rendered and, by turns, both comic and deeply moving, Brick Lane establishes Monica Ali as one of the most exciting new voices in fiction.

Monica Ali (Author), Ayesha Dharker (Narrator)

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Brick Lane

A stunning debut novel by the only unpublished writer named one of the best young British Novelists 2003 by Granta. Short-listed for the 2003 Booker Prize Are we powerless before fate? This broad question floats above Brick Lane, sinks slowly through the air over Bangladesh, and finally comes to rest on the windowsill of a small East End flat. This is the story of two sisters--one who chooses her destiny by opting for a "love marriage" and one who lets destiny dictate her future when she is married off to an older man and moves with him to a small, claustrophobic London flat. But in a classic twist of fate, the sister who chooses her fate meets bitter hardship while Nazneen slowly comes to understand that she can affect the course of her own destiny. This beautifully rendered transformation happens slowly, quietly in the confines of her small flat, then suddenly and with brilliance through the person of the fiery young radical, Karim. In Brick Lane, Ali shows us that, as with most of life, the question of fate is not understood through sharply defined truths, rather through slow ripening and willingness to embrace sometimes opposing ideas.

Monica Ali (Author), Elizabeth Sastre (Narrator)

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