Her parents brought her and her brothers up with a love of literature, ensuring that they spent an hour reading books every night.
[3] However, her childhood was also troubled, due to her family's poverty, and the fact that she was both a perpetrator and victim of bullying in school.
[4] She eventually channelled her anger into writing, pursuing a PhD in English literature and creative writing at Nanyang Technological University, exploring how speculative fiction can be used to explore "issues such as marginality, isolation and socio-historical traumas facing the Malay community in Singapore".
[5] Nuraliah's first novel, The Gatekeeper, blends Greek mythology with contemporary Southeast Asian cultural elements.
Set in the high-tech city of Manticura, it tells the story of a young medusa named Ria, who struggles to protect herself and her community of outcasts who have been marginalised by Human colonial settlers.