Vigilauntie

I can’t remember the last memoir I enjoyed so much. Hilarious, heartbreaking and inspiring, it is a fearless celebration of finding your voice, breaking the rules, and being liberated to sit, unapologetically, with your legs apart – SATHNAM SANGHERA
What a funny, fearless and fascinating story Meera has to tell. I wish I’d been surrounded by a posse of hilarious aunties. This memoir is shot through with wit, intriguing stories and personal history, an absolute joy to read – JO BRAND
Like a cup of Kashmiri chai, Meera’s story is steeped in tradition, resilience, dashed with magic and makes you feel warm all over – RICHARD E GRANT
Meera is the reason I was ever able to imagine myself in comedy. A sharp, unbeatable, timeless wit – JAMEELA JAMIL
Meera Syal has always known that comedy is the sharpest tool in the drawer. Vigilauntie is the book she was born to write - funny, fierce, and full of the stories that made her. It earns its place alongside Anita and Me as an essential chapter in her extraordinary life’s work. Read it. Love it. Cry and laugh – ANITA ANAND
Memoir, history lesson, and delight. Queen of comedy, queen of memoirs - is there nothing Meera Syal can’t do? – CAITLIN MORAN
An honest witty and compelling memoir from one of the UK’s most honest, witty and compelling women – EMMA FREUD
Meera Syal, one of our most celebrated actors, is also one of our most gifted story tellers. This book is a love letter to those Aunties that forged her … In Vigilauntie she has taken the memoir form and made it all her own; poignant, puckish and devastatingly funny, this is refreshing as it is nourishing to read – MONA ARSHI
I adore this book. My heart feels full … Vigilauntie is a thing of beauty that I will keep turning over in my mind for quite some time to come. An erudite tumble of vivid, life affirming memory that weaves its magic around the soul – ABI MORGAN
Once in a while a book comes along that so powerfully finds its way to your very bones that you know it will stay with you forever. Dame Meera Syal’s Vigilauntie is that rare book. It is everything you’d hope for in a memoir and then some - tender, funny, riveting, beautiful and deeply vulnerable, all measured with such generosity that you feel held as a reader all the way through a story both hilarious and heartbreaking at once … I wish I could make Vigilauntie required reading for everyone. Sumptuous and brilliant, this book is my biggest recommendation this year! – NIKITA GILL
By sharing her heart-warming and hilarious story Meera has made a generation of us feel like our stories matter and that we exist. She has a brilliant way of making her story feel universal. She’s an evil genius who can make you cry whilst wetting your pants with laughter. Anyone who’s felt like an outsider, a solo dancer, a misfit and a character part: as long as there is music and Meera, we can face down the aunties and anyone else who comes along – ANITA RANI

Dame Meera Syal FRSL is a multi-award winning writer and actress.

She has written three novels:

• Anita and Me (1996)
• Life isn’t all Ha Ha Hee Hee (1999)
• The House of Hidden Mothers (2015)

Her screenplays include Bhaji On The Beach, and the film adaptations of her first two novels. She rose to prominence as one of the team that created Goodness Gracious Me and by portraying Sanjeev’s grandmother, Ummi, in The Kumars at No. 42, becoming one of the UK’s best-known creatives.

She was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 1997 New Year Honours and in 2003 was listed in The Observer as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy. She was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2015 New Year Honours for services to drama and literature. In 2023, she was awarded the BAFTA Fellowship, its highest accolade, for her distinguished career on screen. In 2024, she starred in The National Theatre’s production of a new play, A Tupperware of Ashes.

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