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Monica Ali
Her novel Brick Lane was the most talked about fictional debut.
Monica Ali's first novel Brick Lane, a portrait of a woman's life in Bangladeshi-dominated East End of London, has been put on the list of editions to watch out for in the future.
The novel is this year's most talked about fictional debut. It is too new for any value to be assessed for the first edition copies but collectors are sure to scurry for it to ensure returns a few years later.
Monica Ali was famously voted one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists on the basis merely of the manuscript of this novel.
A list was published to help collectors in the hunt for valuable "gems" in attics, charity shops and car boot sales. Monica Ali's Brick Lane is the only book among the works of young authors, apart from Zadie Smith's White Teeth (published in 2000), to be listed as having the potential to command a high price a few years after.
Catherine Porter, a Sotheby's expert, said that many people were unaware that their bookshelves might hold a small fortune. "Many people may be staring at a fortune on their bookshelves," she said. Her list of valuable books have been compiled to coincide with the publication of Miller's Collecting Modern Books, a guide on how to turn an interest into a profitable business.
Ali lead the charge of four women writers into the Short list of six for the 2003 Man Booker Prize, Britain's most prestigious annual literary award for fiction. ousting heavyweights like Martin Amis, JM Coetzee and Graham Swift.
There was a partial backlash over the publicity surrounding her debut as a novelist. She had started writing fiction only as an antidote to the "drudgery of domestic chores" following the birth of her first child. She reportedly received a £300,000 advance on the basis of the first six chapters of her novel.
Her novel, Brick Lane, tells the story of a Bangladeshi girl who comes to England for an arranged marriage and has to adapt to life in a East End tower block.
She has addressed the themes of ethnicity and identity in her novel and also struggled to stop critics categorising her by her ethnic background.
