SAMINA ALI was born in Hyderabad, India and raised both there and in the United States. Her debut novel, MADRAS ON RAINY DAYS, was awarded the Prix Premier Roman Etranger 2005 Award by France and was also chosen as the finalist for both the PEN/Hemingway Award in Fiction as well as the California Book Reviewers Award. Poets & Writers Magazine named MADRAS as one of the Top 5 Best Debut Novels of the Year 2004 and Samina was featured on the cover of the June/July issue. Samina speaks regularly at colleges across the country and has also been traveling internationally with the U.S. State Department.

In June 2004, Samina took the novel's message "to the streets" when she helped co-found a Muslim American feminist organization called Daughters of Hajar. Fellow cofounders are Asra Nomani and Saleemah Abdul-Ghafur. Together with a handful of other Muslim American women, the three founders walked peacefully into Asra Nomani's mosque in Morgantown, W. Virginia to reclaim women's rights to enter a mosque from the front door (and not, as was so often required of women in many mosques across the nation, through back entrances) and to pray in the main sanctuary. That small act created ripples across the world and was featured in every major newspaper and media outlet. There is a photo of the group in TIME Magazine walking toward the mosque. In it, Samina appears in a green parrot head scarf and black stiletto heels. One year after the event, the largest Muslim organization in America officially changed its policy, asserting that any woman could enter any mosque in the U.S. through the front door and pray in the main hall, if she so wanted. Since then, Samina has been involved with prominent Muslim organizations in the U.S. to help change the national dialogue about Islam and especially the perception of Muslim women.

Essays of hers have most recently been included in "Altared: bridezillas, big love, breakups, and what women really think about contemporary weddings", "The May Queen: Women on Life, Love & Career" and "Living Islam Out Loud" anthologies. She has also written for publications as diverse as Self and Child Magazines, The New York Times and The San Francisco Chronicle. She lives in California with her son.