The heart-stopping new book from one of Granta's Best of British Novelists 2013
Sunjeev Sahota was born in 1981 in Derbyshire and continues to live in the area. He is the author of the critically acclaimed debut novel, Ours are the Streets.
Told in the most intimate of ways, not theorised but deeply felt .
. . Sahota is a writer who knows how to turn a phrase, how to light
up a scene, how to make you stay up late at night to learn what
happens next. This is a novel that takes on the largest questions
and still shines in the smallest details. Sahota moves some of the
most urgent political questions of the day away from rhetorical
posturing and contested statistics and into the realm of humanity.
The Year of the Runaways is a brilliant and beautiful novel.
*Guardian*
Novels of such scope and invention are all too rare; unusual, too,
are those of real heart, whose characters you grow to love and
truly care for. The Year of the Runaways has it all. The action
spans continents, taking in a vast sweep of politics, religion and
immigration; it also examines with tenderness and delicacy the ties
that bind us, whether to family, friends or fellow travellers.
Judges of forthcoming literary prizes need look no further. [...]
For sheer emotion and vertigo-inducing anxiety, the [closing] scene
ranks with Tess putting the letter under Angel Clare's door, or
Omar Sharif catching sight of Julie Christie on a moving bus in the
film of Dr Zhivago. You cry because of the terribleness of it, but
also because you just don't want this book to end. Sunjeev Sahota
is an absolutely wonderful writer. It is amazing that this book, so
rich, so absorbing, so deftly executed, should be only his second.
I doubt if I'll read a better novel this year.
*Spectator*
An ideal antidote to a year of reductive discussions of
immigration, Sunjeev Sahota's novel takes you deep into the lives
of a group of Indian labourers thrown together in Sheffield. Deftly
shifting in time and place, Sahota builds a portrait of the often
painful circumstances that lead these men to abandon life in India
for this cold, damp city, in the hope of starting afresh. This is
Sahota's second novel. His first, Ours Are the Streets, was an
acutely observed story of a young man's shift from ordinary British
Pakistani teenager to Muslim radical. The Year of the Runaways is
no less accomplished in its lyrical prose and ability to immerse
the reader in the experiences of a hidden community in Britain . .
. It is a testament to Sahota's accomplished characterisation that
he maintains sympathy with the men even after they commit crimes
and take advantage of others
*Independent on Sunday*
This massive book, stuffed with compelling stories, rich in
characters and resoundingly authentic in its detailing of life in
the harsh underbelly of this country, should be compulsory reading.
A magnificent achievement.
*Daily Mail*
The Year of the Runaways takes place in a parallel England, a
near-invisible world that rarely intersects with our own. It is
familiar territory from news reports, but only in outline. Sahota
has a lot to say and he says it calmly, with great moral
intelligence . . . deeply impressive.
*Sunday Times*
A wonderfully evocative storyteller.
*Independent*
A sensitive and searing novel.
*Mail on Sunday*
This is a rich, intricate, beautifully written novel, bursting and
seething with energy.
*The Times*
Nothing short of an asteroid impact would have made me put the book
down
*Irish Times*
The Year of the Runaways is never explicitly polemical, but is
steered instead by humane morality. [. . .] Without flights of
fancy, neither sensationalising nor preachy, its greatest asset is
that it doesn't oversimplify. [. . .] Thoroughly believable,
irresistibly humane and often funny.
*Daily Telegraph*
Sahota's funny, humane second novel is certainly a book for our
times.
*Sunday Telegraph*
Richly authentic and teeming with incident . . . totally
compelling.
*Daily Mail*
A wonderfully subtle writer who makes what he leaves unsaid as
important as the words on the page . . . A wise and compassionate
observer of humanity.
*New Statesman*
By following a handful of young Indian men in England, Sahota has
captured the plight of millions of desperate people struggling to
find work, to eke out some semblance of a decent life in a world
increasingly closed-fisted and mean. This is The Grapes of Wrath
for the 21st century
*Washington Post*
Ask a Question About this Product More... |