i can't seem to let go of this book! (Brick Lane  ) have been doing some further reading in The Guardian, and find that some Bangladeshi residents of the Brick Lane area were outraged and insulted by what they heard about (without, mostly, having read it) Monica Ali's representation of their community.  Ali herself was born in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and came to Britain as a child. everything about her characters rings so true that it's hard not to think there is more than a touch of personal biography in the writing.  lets hope her fellow Bengalis don't declare fatwa on her as was done with Salman Rushdie for The Satanic Verses.  here are a couple of interesting musings on the situation, one by a british writer, "It's Only a Novel;" the other, "The Burden of Representation," by another Bengali woman.  i am most impressed by this latter article, and the sympathy and understanding shown by its author, Fareena Alam.