Sunjeev Sahota's brilliant political novel explores the dreams and struggles of an unlikely household in a warm celebration of the human spirit.
Longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2021. Punjab, 1929: a bride marries a man she is not allowed to see. Curiosity grows, with far-reaching consequences in Sunjeev Sahota’s absorbing novel.
Mehar is one of three women in arranged marriages to three brothers. The women, who live together in a room that houses the family china, are veiled in all their dealings with the men – except when they see them at appointed times in total darkness. Mehar thinks she knows which brother is hers, a belief that awakens a dangerous passion, and a quest for freedom that will have lasting consequences in another continent.
Sunjeev Sahota
About the Author
Sunjeev Sahota is the author of Ours Are the Streets and The Year of the Runaways, which was shortlisted for the 2015 Booker Prize.I do try to withhold as much as possible, to both clear a space in which ideas and feelings can be perceived and not asserted
Listen to an extract from China Room
Indira Varma and Antonio Aakeel bring the audiobook of China Room to life.
Penguin Books UK · China Room - Sunjeev Sahota
There is a scrupulous subtlety about that way that Sahota refuses to let his historical characters act as though they are in a historical novel
Sunjeev Sahota and Kamila Shamsie in conversation
For the Vintage Books podcast, Sunjeev Sahota and Kamila Shamsie spoke with Ted Hodgkinson, head of literature and spoken word at Southbank Centre and a former International Booker Prize judge, about China Room, authorship, writing histories, and more.
Sunjeev Sahota, 2015.
© David Levenson/Getty ImagesOther nominated books by Sunjeev Sahota
