About

I'm Kia Abdullah; writer and novelist. I am a humble 26 years of age and was born and raised in Tower Hamlets, London. All through life I envied those who had found their niche in life; the one thing that they were really good at and really enjoyed. After graduating with a First in BSc Computer Science from Queen Mary, University of London, I went on to work in IT. I enjoyed this work but it wasn't what was in my heart. Somewhere between the endless array of 9-to-5s, I finally realised what I knew even in primary school; I was a storyteller, a writer.

Since I was a mere nine years old, I had teachers and friends tell me to write but somehow, along the way, I got caught up in the more mundane things in life such as finding a "respectable" and "reliable" field of work. Becoming a writer was a frivolity seldom afforded to young Asian girls from working-class backgrounds. They say that "everyone has a book in them" and I could feel my novel fighting for creation so eventually I relented and found the time to start writing. This is how Life, Love & Assimilation began.

During my life as an Asian Muslim girl living in Britain , many questions, issues and frustrations formed in my mind; issues that were not addressed anywhere. Sure, you have a heap of novels written to a multi-cultural backdrop but I found them all oddly similar in their writing style. Popular adjectives used to describe such novels include evocative, vivid, spellbinding, wistful or as a "sweet, sleepless pilgrimage into life". Central heroines remain the same; quietly strong, carried by the current of life and while those are not necessarily bad things in a novel, I wanted to write something more real.

I wanted to write a novel that did not sugarcoat what it's like to be last in the pecking order of society; a female member of a racial minority with a faith that is plundered and vilified all across the western world. I wanted to show what it's really like to be a modern Asian woman caught between two cultures, two minds and two hearts. This is something I feel I have achieved through Life, Love & Assimilation .

After publishing the book, I accepted a position at internationally renowned publication Asian Woman Magazine. Right now I am focusing on finishing my second novel; a psychological sex-crime thriller called Innocence Lost. People ask if I am worried about it equalling the success of Life, Love & Assimilation; if I'm concerned about fading into obscurity. I tell them that I am perfectly happy residing in obscurity. You see, I do not write for fame or fortune. I write to exorcise personal demons, to fulfil a personal passion and hopefully to satisfy my readers. If a person picks up my book and is compelled to read it and actually enjoys it, then that is enough for me.

So all in all, life is manic at the moment but it's a life full of passion. And I would rather live a life of passion than a life of peace.

 

Last updated: May 2008