Monica fights for National Critics award

“Monica Ali’s Brick Lane is going to be duking it out with the likes of Edward P. Jones (“The Known World,” Amistad/HarperCollins), Caryl Phillips (“A Distant Shore,” Alfred A. Knopf), Richard Powers (“The Time of Our Singing,” Farrar, Straus & Giroux) and Tobias Wolff (“Old School,” Knopf) in the National Book Critics Circle honors this year,” reports the New York Times