E10, Not Eton!
Ali was born and raised in Leyton, London. He is the eldest of six children. He was a bibliophile and cinephile from a tender age. His mother reading to him before he could even speak are among his first memories. As a child, he was mesmerized by Greek, Roman, Nordic, West African, Egyptian, Jewish, Arab and Hindu mythologies.
His earliest recollection of stories were anthropomorphic fantasy types: Watership Down by Richard Adams, The Chronicles Of Narnia by C S Lewis, The Waterbabies by the Reverend Charles Kingsley, The Plague Dogs (again) by Richard Adams, Lord of the Rings by J R R Tolkien, Tarka the Otter by Henry Williamson, The Last Unicorn by Peter S Beagle, Colin Dann’s The Animals of Farthing Wood and Heinrich Hoffman's Der Struwwelpeter. A children’s television series, Storybook International, based on ecumenical folk tales, was devotional viewing at the age of eight. Watching these fables on TV was an unveiling, a preparedness into the immeasurable realms of narrative and legend.
Legends from the Panchatantra, Scheherazade’s One Thousand And One Nights, Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy, the Aesopica and Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey encouraged him into writing fiction.
Rowland Molony’s Themba and the Crocodile, Johanna Spryi’s Heidi and Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe were among the books he read repeatedly as a child. Along with the Theogony, Oresteia, Argonautica, Works And Days and the Aeneid, these are among the timeless annunciators of the human mind. These enchanting and bewitching stories illuminated his anima. The works of H.G Wells, Edgar Allan Poe and Arthur C. Clarke were very early boundless exemplars of storytelling.
The Autobiography Of Malcolm X by Alex Haley was a staple but absorbing tome for the adolescent Ali. He read a healthy share of the Usborne Books and Ian Livingston’s Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks. He was enraptured further by Milton and Marlowe, Shakespeare and Virgil, Dickens and Dahl, books by Andrew Lang, Roger Lancelyn Green on other myths and legends. His childhood home possessed the most fascinating books. That proved to be the bedrock of an idyllic preadolescence. He remains an obsessive reader to this day.
Un Homme Sérieux.
In these shriving times, it is refreshing to read the works of a dogged, unmodulated but protean author who is unencumbered by dogma, unsubdued by ideology, unlike the chinless desiderata that currently hold sway in the theater of the absurd.
Ali was afflicted with an acute case of cacoëthes scribendi (an uncontrollable urge to write) from a young age. It is an ineradicable contagion from which there is no remedy. He is a self-confessed Stakhanovite.
The ictus of his sentences bequeaths an earthy cadence that braids his storytelling. His extemporaneous tenor is both lucid and lexical. His taut and roiling descriptions characterize the bombination of the sibilant street and the lamenting city. This faint, simmering brooding lingers on, till the book’s ending or when the reader stops. A similitude for Ali's penscript irritations is that of a Struwwelpeter or Edward Scissorhands type, who is inordinately skilled at topiaries and hair trimming, but wounds and cuts indiscriminately by way of his prose anarchy and word dissidence.
Imposing diminutions in art and expression are harbingers to the free-thinking, free-wielding author. The author then becomes a mime and a shill, who parrots platitudes and shibboleths to much applause. Ali is vigilantly mindful of the trapdoors that lead to easy fame and quick fortune. He remains disciplined in his desire to create a niagara of incendiary literature and irreverent cinema. The integrity of his work is of primary importance.
Ali's favorite contemporary authors include Michel Houellebecq, Will Self, Monica Ali, Zadie Smith, Salman Rushdie, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Tony Nesca, James Wood and Leïla Slimani.
Ali's favorite all-time writers include Alexandre Dumas, Colin MacInnes, John Osborne, Camille Paglia, Oriana Fallaci, Ernest Hemingway, Cormac McCarthy, John Milton, Gore Vidal, Susan Sontag, Naguib Mahfouz and Martin Amis.
Ali's musical tastes are eclectic. He reveres the music of Michael Jackson, Prince, George Michael, Whitney Houston, Aram Khachaturian, David Bowie, Oasis, Radiohead, Massive Attack, Jamiroquai, Neneh Cherry, The Verve, The Beatles, Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin.
Ali has an acute interest in literature, mythology, history, religious scriptures and their foundational texts.
Ali is a supporter of Everton Football Club. He finds ethereal bliss in books, solitude and cigars.