Kia Abdullah is a British novelist and travel writer. She has written four novels: Life, Love and Assimilation, Child's Play, Take It Back and Truth Be Told, and has contributed to The New York Times, The Guardian, The Times and The Telegraph among other publications.
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."
In 2006, Abdullah published her first novelLife, Love and Assimilation, which drew comparisons with Monica Ali's Brick Lane. In 2009, Abdullah published her second novel, a psychological thriller called Child's Play. 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 identity as a British-Asian writer. In 2009, her article on honour killings 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. Abdullah went on to join global publisher Penguin Random House where she worked on travel brand Rough Guides. In 2014, she quit her job to found Atlas & Boots, an outdoor travel blog now 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 her third novel 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 news books by British-Asian authors. Abdullah's next novel, Truth Be Told, is due to be published by HarperCollins in September 2020.
Personal life
Abdullah is in a relationship with British travel photographer Peter Watson. She and Watson do not have children. Abdullah was born and brought up as Muslim. In 2020, she stated that she identifies as a Cultural Muslim.
