Sunjeev Sahota (1981) was born in Derby and currently lives in Leeds with his wife and daughter. His first novel, Ours are the Streets, was published in 2011. ‘Arrivals’ is an excerpt from The Year of the Runaways, his unfinished second novel, forthcoming from Picador.
Salman Rushdie on Sunjeev Sahota
Granta ran an online series where former Best of Young British Novelists introduced writers from the fourth edition, below Salman Rushdie(1983) on Sunjeev Sahota.
I remember when I was a judge of an earlier Best of Young British selection. The most pleasant part of the job was feeling the shock of discovery. You open a book by a writer you’ve never heard of and a new voice leaps off the page and makes you listen. The real thing: it declares itself instantly and all you can do is surrender, happily, to its power. I read this piece without knowing its title or the writer’s name (both Top Secret at the time) but the talent couldn’t be redacted. There it is on every page, strong, fresh and true. I look forward to reading more.
For more about the author, including critical perspectives and in-depth biographies, visit the British Council’s web pages on Salman Rushdie and Sunjeev Sahota.