Her first novel "White Teeth" won the 2000 Whitbread First Novel Award,
the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction and the 2001
Commonwealth Writers Prize Best First Book award.
Studied English Literature at King's College, Cambridge University,
England (1994 - 1997), after attending public (state) schools. She said
she chose to apply only to Cambridge because that's where all her
favorite British authors were educated.
Was nominated for the 2005 Man Booker Prize for the novel On Beauty
(but didn't win).