Kia Abdullah
   HOME

TheInfoList



Click Here for Items Related To - Kia Abdullah
OR:
Kia Abdullah on:   [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Amazon]

Kia Abdullah (born 17 May 1982) is a British novelist and travel writer. She is the best-selling author of courtroom dramas ''Take It Back'' (
HarperCollins HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News Cor ...
, 2019), ''Truth Be Told'' (
HarperCollins HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News Cor ...
, 2020) and ''Next of Kin'' (
HarperCollins HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News Cor ...
, 2021), and has written for ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'', ''
The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...
,'' ''The Financial Times'', ''
The Telegraph ''The Telegraph'', ''Daily Telegraph'', ''Sunday Telegraph'' and other variant names are popular names for newspapers. Newspapers with these titles include: Australia * ''The Telegraph'' (Adelaide), a newspaper in Adelaide, South Australia, publ ...
'' and the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
, among other publications.


Background

Abdullah is of Bangladeshi descent and was born and brought up in the London borough of
Tower Hamlets The London Borough of Tower Hamlets is a London borough covering much of the traditional East End. It was formed in 1965 from the merger of the former metropolitan boroughs of Stepney, Poplar, and Bethnal Green. 'Tower Hamlets' was originally ...
in a family of eight children. Of her childhood, Abdullah has said: " eopleimagine poverty and misery, hardship and hand-me-downs. Of course I forfeited my fair share of material pleasures but a household of noise and colour is far better than possessions and privilege."


Education

Abdullah was educated in England. She graduated from
Queen Mary, University of London , mottoeng = With united powers , established = 1785 – The London Hospital Medical College1843 – St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College1882 – Westfield College1887 – East London College/Queen Mary College , type = Public researc ...
with a first class in BSc Computer Science. Her final year thesis was titled ''A Program Slicing Tool for Analysing Java Programs''. Abdullah has an IQ of 150. She was a member of
Mensa International Mensa is the largest and oldest high-IQ society in the world. It is a non-profit organisation open to people who score at the 98th percentile or higher on a standardised, supervised IQ or other approved intelligence test. Mensa formally compr ...
– a non-profit organization open to people who score at the 98th percentile of IQ – but left within a year of joining.


Career

Abdullah graduated in 2003, after which she worked in tech for three years. In 2007, she quit her job in tech to pursue a career as a writer, taking a 50% pay cut in the process. From 2008 to 2010, Abdullah wrote about a range of topics, from politics to relationships, for ''The Guardian''. She also worked as Features Editor at Asian Woman magazine, during which time she interviewed a range of prominent Asian actors and musicians including
Riz Ahmed Rizwan Ahmed (; ; born ) is a British actor and rapper. As an actor, he has won an Emmy Award and has received nominations for a Golden Globe and three British Independent Film Awards, and as a rapper he has won an Academy Award for the short ...
,
Meera Syal Meera Syal FRSL (born Feroza Syal; 27 June 1961) is a English comedian, writer, playwright, singer, journalist and actress. She rose to prominence as one of the team that created '' Goodness Gracious Me'' and portraying Sanjeev's grandmother, ...
,
Nitin Sawhney Nitin Sawhney , D.Mus (; born 1964) is a British musician, producer and composer. A recipient of the Ivor Novello Lifetime Achievement award in 2017, among multiple international awards throughout his career. Sawhney's work combines Asian a ...
,
Jay Sean Kamaljit Singh Jhooti (born 26 March 1981), better known by the stage name Jay Sean, is a British singer and songwriter. He debuted in the UK's Asian Underground scene as a member of the Rishi Rich Project with "Dance with You", which reached ...
and
Anoushka Shankar Anoushka Shankar (born 9 June 1981) is a British-American sitar player, producer, film composer and activist. She was the youngest and first woman to receive a British House of Commons Shield; she has had 7 Grammy Awards nominations and was the ...
. During this time she also published two novels, 2006's ''Life, Love and Assimilation'' and 2009's ''Child's Play''. Abdullah was an occasional guest on
BBC Radio 2 BBC Radio 2 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It is the most popular station in the United Kingdom with over 15 million weekly listeners. Since launching in 1967, the station broadcasts a wide range of content. ...
's
Jeremy Vine Jeremy Guy Vine (born 17 May 1965) is an English television and radio personality, presenter, broadcaster and journalist. He is best known as the host of his BBC Radio 2 lunchtime programme which presents news, views, interviews with live guest ...
Show as well as
BBC Asian Network BBC Asian Network is a British Asian radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station's target audience is people "with an interest in British Asian lifestyles", especially British Asians between the ages of 18 and 34. The station has ...
's DJ Nihal show and spoke publicly about a range of subjects, from drug abuse and gender inequality to dealing with culture and identity as a British-Asian writer. In 2009, she was nominated for a Muslim Writers Award. In 2011, she was involved in a Twitter controversy. In 2012, Abdullah joined global publisher
Penguin Random House Penguin Random House LLC is an Anglo-American multinational corporation, multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate publishing company formed on July 1, 2013, from the merger of Penguin Group and Random House. On April 2, 2020, Bertels ...
where she worked on travel brand
Rough Guides Rough Guides Ltd is a British travel guide book and reference publisher, which has been owned by APA Publications since November 2017. In addition to publishing guidebooks, the company also provides a tailor-made trips service based on customer ...
. In 2014, Abdullah quit her job to found Atlas & Boots, an outdoor travel blog read by 150,000 people a month. Abdullah has contributed to
Lonely Planet Lonely Planet is a travel guide book publisher. Founded in Australia in 1973, the company has printed over 150 million books. History Early years Lonely Planet was founded by married couple Maureen and Tony Wheeler. In 1972, they embarked ...
and Rough Guides and has spoken about her travels on television, radio, print and online. She and photographer Peter Watson released the travel book ''Don't Offer Papaya: 101 Tips for Your First Time Around the World'' in 2014. In 2019, Abdullah's mainstream debut crime novel, ''Take It Back'', was published by HarperCollins. It was chosen by ''The Guardian'', ''The Telegraph'' and ''The Sunday Times'' newspapers as one of the best new crime and thriller novels. In 2020, Abdullah's fourth novel, ''Truth Be Told,'' was published by HarperCollins and consequently short-listed for a Diverse Book Award. In July that year, Abdullah founded Asian Booklist, a website to help readers discover new books by British-Asian authors. In 2021, Abdullah's fifth novel, ''Next of Kin,'' was published by HarperCollins. It was named The Times Book of the Month, was long-listed for the CWA
Gold Dagger The Gold Dagger is an award given annually by the Crime Writers' Association of the United Kingdom since 1960 for the best crime novel of the year. From 1955 to 1959, the organization named their top honor as the Crossed Red Herring Award. From ...
and won the Diverse Book Award for Adult Fiction. Her sixth novel, ''Those People Next Door,'' is due to be published in 2023.


Personal life

Abdullah is in a relationship with British travel photographer Peter Watson. Abdullah was born and brought up as Muslim. In 2020, she stated that she identifies as a
cultural Muslim Cultural Muslims are religiously non-practicing individuals who still identify with Islam due to family backgrounds, personal experiences, or the social and cultural environment in which they grew up. Definition In Central Asia and in former co ...
. Abdullah speaks three languages: English, Bengali and Spanish.


Bibliography

Novels * 2006: ''Life, Love and Assimilation'' * 2009: ''Child's Play'' * 2019: ''Take It Back'' * 2020: ''Truth Be Told'' * 2021: ''Next of Kin'' * 2023: ''Those People Next Door'' Nonfiction * 2014: ''Don't Offer Papaya: 101 Tips for Your First Time Around the World'' (with Peter Watson)


References


External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Abdullah, Kia 1982 births Living people People from the London Borough of Tower Hamlets People educated at Central Foundation Girls' School 21st-century English novelists 21st-century English women writers Alumni of Queen Mary University of London British Asian writers English Muslims English agnostics English people of Bangladeshi descent English women novelists English journalists English columnists Mensans The Guardian journalists British women columnists Writers from London English women non-fiction writers