British novelist and travel writer

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, 2019), Truth Be Told (HarperCollins, 2020) and Next of Kin (HarperCollins, 2021), and has written for The New York Times, The Guardian, The Times, The Financial Times, The Telegraph and the BBC, among other publications.

Contents

• 1 Background
• 2 Education
• 3 Career
• 4 Personal life
• 5 Bibliography
• 6 References
• 7 External links

Background

Abdullah is of Bangladeshi descent and was born and brought up in the London borough of Tower Hamlets in a family of eight children. Of her childhood, Abdullah has said: " imagine 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 with a first cl* in BSc Computer Science. Her final year thesis was *led A Program Slicing Tool for *ysing Java Programs. Abdullah has an IQ of 150. She was a member of Mensa International – 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, Meera Syal, Nitin Sawhney, Jay Sean and Anoushka Shankar.

Abdullah was an occasional guest on BBC Radio 2's Jeremy Vine Show as well as BBC Asian Network's DJ Nihal show and spoke publicly about a range of subjects, from drug abuse and gender inequality to dealing with culture and iden*y as a British-Asian writer. In 2009, she was nominated for a Muslim Writers Award. In 2011, she was involved in a controversy over comments made on Twitter about three British students on overseas travel.

In 2012, she joined global publisher Penguin Random House where she worked on travel brand Rough Guides. In 2014, Abdullah quit her job to found Atlas & Boots, an outdoor travel blog read by 250,000 people a month. Abdullah has contributed to Lonely Planet and Rough Guides and has spoken about her travels on television, radio, print and online.

In 2019, Abdullah published Take It Back, which was chosen by The Guardian, The Telegraph and The Sunday Times newspapers as one of the best new crime and thriller novels. In 2020, she founded Asian Booklist, a website to help readers discover new books by British-Asian authors. Abdullah's second novel, Truth Be Told, was published by HarperCollins in 2020 and consequently short-listed for a Diverse Book Award. Her third novel, Next of Kin, was published in September 2021. It was named The Times Book of the Month and long-listed for the CWA Gold Dagger. Her fourth 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.

Bibliography

Novels

• 2019: Take It Back
• 2020: Truth Be Told
• 2021: Next of Kin
• 2023: Those People Next Door

References

External links

• Official website
• Kia Abdullah at IMDb