Actress, writer and novelist
Meera Syal
Actress, writer and novelist. Meera Syal was born and brought up in
Essington, a Staffordshire mining village five miles north-east of the
centre of Wolverhampton.She was educated at Manchester University where
she read English and Drama. She co-wrote the script for 'My Sister Wife',
a three-part BBC Television series, and wrote the film Bhaji on the
Beach for Channel 4. She co-writes and is a cast member of the popular
BBC Television comedy series 'Goodness Gracious Me'. She also works
as a journalist and is a regular contributor to The Guardian.
Meera Syal's childhood experiences growing up in a small mining community
provided the background to her first novel, Anita and Me (1996).
The novel was shortlisted for the Guardian Fiction Prize and won
a Betty Trask Award. It tells the story of Meena Kumar, a young Asian
girl struggling to accommodate the opposing influences of her white
schoolfriends and her traditional Punjabi background. Syal's second
novel, Life Isn't All Ha Ha Hee Hee (1999), narrates the adventures
of three young Asian women growing up in Britain.
She learns, however, to come to terms with her own British Asian identity.
The village, Tollington, could so easily be Essington:-
"From the crest of the hill, on a clear day, you could see
the industrial chimneys of Wolverhampton, smoking like fat men's cigars,
and sometimes a glimpse of the dark fringes of Cannock Chase, several
square miles of thick conifers bristling with secrets and deer."
Meera Syal was awarded an MBE in 1997 and won the 'Media Personality
of the Year' award at the Commission for Racial Equality's annual
'Race in the Media' awards (2000), as well as the EMMA (BT
Ethnic and Multicultural Media Award) for Media Personality of the Year
in 2001.
Works
Selected works by the author
Anita and me (1996)
Bhaji on the Beach (1994) [Film]
Life isn't all ha ha hee hee (2000) [Novel]
One of Us [Play]