Sunjeev Sahota, an Indian-origin British author, is one of the six novelists who have been short-listed for the prestigious Man Booker Prize in 2015. Sahota’s second novel, The Year of the Runaways, made him get into the shortlist of the Man Booker Prize. The book is about the lives of thirteen young men from India who are living in a house in Sheffield, and their day to day struggles. Here are five things about Sunjeev Sahota.

1. 34-year-old Sahota hails from Derby. He moved to Chesterfield when he was seven. His paternal grandparents emigrated to Britain from Punjab in the year 1996.
2. Sahota was a student of mathematics. In his childhood, he did not read any novels. He read his first novel at the age of 18 and the book that he read was Salman Rushdie’s Midnight Children.
3. Ever since that, he was more interested in reading. The debut of his writing was in the year 2011 when he published his first novel, Ours Are the Streets. At that he was working in the marketing department of an insurance company.
4. As he continued his full time job before his first novel, he wrote it during weekends, and during the evenings. After that, he quit his job to pursue writing full time.
5. Sahota is a fan of reading Russian literature. He is influenced by the classical mode of storytelling.

Image Reference: TheBetterIndia