Madeleine Feeny

The young bride’s tale: China Room, by Sunjeev Sahota, reviewed

On a remote farm in Punjab two stories intertwine: of a 15-year-old’s startling marriage arrangements and her great-grandson’s struggle with heroin addiction

Girls in the Punjab in the early 20th century. [Getty Images] 
issue 24 July 2021

Sunjeev Sahota’s novels present an unvarnished image of British Asian lives. Ours Are the Streets chronicles a suicide bomber’s radicalisation, and its Booker-shortlisted successor, The Year of the Runaways, follows illegal immigrants in Sheffield — where Sahota now lives, having been raised in Derby by Punjabi-born parents. China Room, his most autobiographical work to date, mines his adolescence in deprived 1990s Chesterfield and imagines that of his great-grandmother in rural Punjab.

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