Jenny Colgan sparked a huge backlash with her review of the Bake Off winner's novel
A leading Scottish writer has been hounded off social media after a critical review of a Great British Bake Off winner’s debut novel.
Nadiya Hussain, 32, rose to fame after winning the 2015 series of the hit baking show.
She has since remained in the limelight by presenting documentaries, printing cook books and being commissioned to bake the Queen’s 90th birthday cake.
But her first turn as a novelist left one of Scotland’s top authors less than impressed after she suggested it was ghost written.
After reading The Secret Lives of the Amir Sisters – Hussain’s 384-page novel about four Muslim sisters in an English village – writer Jenny Colgan branded Hussain ‘greedy’.
But her review has been met with stern responses of its own – with the backlash seeming to have forced Colgan to leave social media.
In a review published on Thursday, the Prestwick-born ‘chick –lit’ author rallies against Hussain, writing: ‘What’s the book like? It’s perfectly competent, as well it should be, as the “helper or “consultant” or whatever we’re supposed to call them is the highly talented Ayisha Malik, author of the funny and sparky Sofia Khan Is Not Obliged, a smart and acerbic romcom about a young woman writing a book on Muslim dating.
‘It’s hardly a new phenomenon, celebrities turning up out of the blue with novels what they have most definitely wrote.
Nadiya Hussain, pictured winning the Great British Bake Off, wrote The Secret Lives of the Amir Sisters, a 384-page novel about four Muslim sisters in an English village
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Share 20 shares‘Maybe it’s particularly upsetting me this time because I’m a fan. Hussain is just so brimful of talent; of happiness and grace and skill. Does she really need to put her name to a novel, too, when there’s only so much shelf space to go around?’
She then adds: ‘I was hoping for insights into a culture I don’t understand as well as I’d like, but the main thrust, overall, is that big noisy religious families are all more or less the same, which, while undoubtedly true, didn’t add much for this Irish/Italian Catholic.
Fans rallied to defend the author after Colgan's review
‘I think the worst thing is it feels greedy. Not the good greedy that makes you learn to make delicious things and grab life with both hands, defy expectations, all the things which Hussain has done so admirably. Books are a zero sum game. If you’re reading one, you can’t be reading another.’
But the review has provoked a strong reaction online, with many calling Colgan’s comments racist.
Social media user Zainab Akhtar wrote: ‘White woman taking down book written by two brown women as “there’s only so much shelf space to go around?” Horrid.’
One other said: ‘I read the Jenny Colgan piece and holy s**t I hope she never gets to write again. What a piece of trash.’
Another added: ‘Thanks to Colgan’s ugly and...snide review, I just bought this. Your jealousy is ugly as hell.’
Yet more declared the review was a ‘nasty screed’ and said it is ‘racist’ and ‘Islamophobic’.
Colgan – best known for her romantic comedy page-turners with titles such as Welcome to the Little School by the Sea – seems to have disappeared from Twitter since the review.
It is understood that she left as a result of the backlash and the barrage of abuse directed at her.
Colgan and Hussain did not respond to requests for comment last night.
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