Writer, actress, comedian, and more, Meera Syal was raised in the West Midlands of England, in a small mining village near Wolverhampton, shortly after her parents emigrated from New Delhi in the early 1960s.
An author of three novels, Anita and Me (1996), Life Isn’t All Ha Ha Hee Hee (1999), and The House of the Hidden Novels (2015), as well as two screenplays, My Sister Wife (1992) and Bhaji on the Beach (1993), Meera Syal is also a prominent British actor, a series regular on BBC Television shows Goodness Gracious Me and The Kumars at No. 42, and a noted stage actor, having worked with The Royal Shakespeare Company and The Royal Court Theatre.
Winner of the Betty Trask Award for her debut novel, Anita and Me, as well as two International Emmy Awards, the Women in Film and Television’s Creative Achievement Award, and a BAFTA nomination, Meera Syal has received wide acclaim for her work across artistic mediums. In 2015, Meera was appointed Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, a national award for her contributions to British drama and literature. She is also an inducted fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Meera Syal’s 1996 debut novel, Anita and Me, is the coming-of-age story of nine-year-old Meena Kumar, a drama-seeking, pop-song-singing, slime-trail-extolling, British-Indian school girl.
In part inspired by Meera Syal’s upbringing in the West...
Meera Syal is an Indian-British actor and writer born on June 27, 1961 in Wolverhampton, England. As a child, she noticed she was the only Asian person in her school, and this division she felt between the rest of her peers was heavily influential...
