I’ve had very positive reactions to the book; some have said that it was refreshing to come across a novel that portrayed modern Bangladeshis in such a positive light, rather than the more traditional depiction of them as poor victims dragged from their villages into urban squalor. Henna is a very different sort of Bengali housewife than we are used to seeing in the West, in that she is extroverted, unrepentantly manipulative, cosmopolitan, and stylish. However, I have also been criticised in some quarters for not being “political” enough, and not representing the clash of East/West cultures as a driving force in the novel. This was a deliberate choice—-I’m fortunate enough to be of a generation that doesn’t have to wear one’s ethnicity as a chip on the shoulder or a soapbox to stand on; it’s simply what I am. In the same way, although my characters are Asian, my concern isn’t to explore issues to do with their “Asian-ness” but rather their deeper emotional and psychological motivations that are unrelated to their race—in this sense, my characters are universal, as I’m far more interested in what lies beneath the skin.

What is your own Asian background?

Like the twin boys in my novel, my father was Pakistani, and my mother is Bangladeshi. I was born in Pakistan in 1974, but my family moved to London when I was seven months old; by the time I was sixteen I had taken dual British/Pakistani citizenship. My family was always rather international and relaxed with regard to our Muslim faith; when my parents separated, my father married a Chinese-American Catholic, and my mother’s long-term partner (who gave me away at my wedding) is English-Iraqi of Jewish origin. My sisters and I were brought up in a liberal environment where we were free to date or drink without censure, but still retained our Muslim identity. No eyebrows were raised in the extended family when I married my Anglo-Irish husband in a civil ceremony (I wore a sari, he wore a suit), although my aunt did express astonishment some years later when I explained that I’d left him at home that day to look after our baby by himself: “But he’s a man! Are you sure he’s capable?”

When did you first realize that you wanted to be a writer?