Author Bio
• Birth—1981
• Where—Derby, England, UK
• Education—Imperial College, London
• Currently—lives in Sheffield, England
Sunjeev Sahota is a British novelist whose first novel, Ours Are the Streets, was published in 2011 and whose second novel, The Year of the Runaways, was shortlisted for the 2015 Man Booker Prize.
Background
Sahota's paternal grandparents emigrated to Britain from the Punjab in 1966. Sahota was born fifteen years later, in 1981, in Derby, England. When he was seven, the family moved to Chesterfield. After finishing school, Sahota studied mathematics at Imperial College London. As of January 2011, he was working in marketing for the insurance company Aviva. He lives with his wife and children in Sheffield, England.
Surprisingly, Sahota never read a novel until he was 18 years old. Although he studied English literature at GCSE level—reading poetry and full-length plays (including Shakespeare)—students were not required to read a full-length novel.
Then, the summer before starting college, Sahota wandered into an airport bookstore while waiting for a flight to visit his relatives in India. He picked up Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children. Captivated, he went on to read The God of Small Things, A Suitable Boy, and The Remains of the Day.
In a January, 2011, Yorkshire Post interview, Sahota spoke of that sudden devotion to reading:
It was like I was making up for lost time—not that I had to catch up, but it was as though I couldn't quite believe this world of storytelling I had found and I wanted to get as much of it down me as I possibly could.
Works
Sahota's first novel, Ours are the Streets, was written in the evenings and on weekends, his free time from his day job. The novel tells the story of a British Pakistani youth who becomes a suicide bomber. Sahota was prompted to start writing the book by the July, 2005, London bombings.
His second novel, The Year of the Runaways, about the experience of illegal immigrants in Britain, was published in 2015 (2016, U.S.).
Recognition
In 2013 Sahota was included in a Granta list of 20 best young writers. His second novel, The Year of the Runaways, was shortlisted for the 2015 Man Booker Prize. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 3/30/2016.)