Ali was born and raised in Leyton, London. He is the eldest of six children. He was a voracious bookworm from a young age. As a child, he was fascinated by Greek, Roman, Nordic, West African, Egyptian, Jewish, Arab and Hindu mythologies. Having his mother read to him before he could speak were among his first memories.
His earliest recollection of stories were anthropomorphic fantasy types: Watership Down by Richard Adams, The Chronicles Of Narnia by C S Lewis, The Waterbabies by the Reverend Charles Kingsley, The Plague Dogs (again) by Richard Adams, Lord of the Rings by J R R Tolkien, Tarka the Otter by Henry Williamson, The Last Unicorn by Peter S Beagle, Colin Dann’s The Animals of Farthing Wood and Heinrich Hoffman's 'Der Struwwelpeter.' A children’s television series, Storybook International, based on ecumenical folk tales, was devotional viewing at the age of eight. Watching these fables on TV was an unveiling, a preparedness into the immeasurable realms of narrative and legend.
Legends from the Panchatantra, Scheherazade’s One Thousand And One Nights, Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, the Aesopica and Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey encouraged him into writing irreverent fiction.
Rowland Molony’s Themba and the Crocodile, Johanna Spryi’s Heidi and Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe were among the books he read repeatedly as a child. Along with the Theogony, Oresteia, Argonautica, Works And Days and the Aeneid, these are among the timeless annunciators of the human mind. These enchanting and bewitching stories illuminated his anima. The works of H.G Wells, Edgar Allan Poe and Arthur C. Clarke were very early boundless exemplars of storytelling.
The Autobiography Of Malcolm X by Alex Haley was a staple but absorbing tome for the adolescent Ali. He read a healthy share of the Usborne Books and Ian Livingston’s Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks. He was mesmerized by the Aesopica, Milton, Shakespeare, Virgil, Dickens and Dahl, books by Andrew Lang, Roger Lancelyn Green on other myths and legends. His childhood home possessed the most fascinating books. He remains an obsessive reader to this day.
In these shriving times, it is refreshing to read the works of a dogged, unmodulated but protean author who is unencumbered by dogma, unsubdued by ideology, unlike the chinless desiderata that currently hold sway in the theater of the absurd.
Ali was afflicted with an acute case of cacoëthes scribendi (an uncontrollable urge to write) from a young age. It is an ineradicable illness.
The ictus of his sentences bequeaths an earthy cadence that braids his storytelling. His extemporaneous tenor is both lucid and lexical. His taut and roiling descriptions characterize the bombination of the sibilant street and the lamenting city. This faint, simmering brooding lingers on, till the book’s ending or when the reader stops. A similitude for Ali's penscript irritations is that of a Struwwelpeter or Edward Scissorhands type, who is inordinately skilled at topiaries and hair trimming, but wounds and cuts indiscriminately by way of his prose anarchy and word dissidence.
Imposing contraindications in art and expression pinions the transcendence of the free-thinking, free-wielding author. He becomes a bore and a shill. He lacks credibility and conviction. Ali's ambition is to become a quarry of transgressive literature and subversive film, free of restriction, limitation. and fear.
Ali's favorite contemporary authors are Michel Houellebecq, Will Self, Monica Ali, Zadie Smith, Tony Nesca, Martin Amis and Leïla Slimani.
Ali's musical tastes are eclectic. He adores the music of Michael Jackson, Prince, George Michael, David Bowie, Oasis, Radiohead, The Verve, Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin. He has an acute interest in history, religious scriptures and their foundational texts, theater, film and the liberal arts. He is a supporter of Everton Football Club. He finds ethereal bliss in solitude and cigars.
Ali wrote the screenplay to the neo-noir film, Elixir. The film will serve as his directorial debut. As of January 2024, Elixir is in post-production development.
Ali is heavily influenced by 1970s cinematography: of the Hollywood, Bollywood and European screen. He is a student of the directorial works of Gaspar Noé, Herb Ritts, Stanley Kubrick, Steve McQueen, Alan Clarke, Woody Allen, David Fincher, David Lean, Spike Lee, Ousmane Sembène, Leni Riefenstahl, Ingmar Bergman, Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock and Quentin Tarantino.
Ali has been commissioned into co-writing the first two series of the crime-action television drama titled Brendan Baker.
Ali's page can be found on the Internet Movie Database website by following this link:
Ali Kinteh
Copyright © 2021-24 Ali Kinteh - All Rights Reserved.
Powered by GoDaddy