The heart-stopping novel 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. His debut novel, Ours are the Streets, was called 'Nothing short of extraordinary' Observer. His second novel, The Year of the Runaways, was shortlisted for the 2015 Man Booker Prize and was awarded a European Union Prize for Literature in 2017. He is one of Granta's Best of British Novelists 2013.
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.
-- Kamila Shamsie * Guardian *
Writing with unsentimental candor, Mr. Sahota has created a cast of
characters whose lives are so richly imagined that this deeply
affecting novel calls out for a sequel or follow-up that might
recount the next installment of their lives. * New York Times *
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 --
Emily Dugan * Independent on Sunday *
The Grapes of Wrath for the 21st century . . . We know -
from Victor Hugo, Charles Dickens and John Steinbeck - how such a
monumental social novel should work. But the great marvel of this
book is its absolute refusal to grasp at anything larger than the
hopes and humiliations of these few marginal people. With that
tight focus, the story's critique of inequality, racism and
economic slavery remains entirely implicit, but no less
devastating. Instead of speed, it offers precision, gathering small
morsels of spoiled hope until the story's momentum feels absolutely
overwhelming. * Washington Post *
Masterly . . . A poignant exploration of the fate of friendship and
goodness in a frontier world that "makes you only care for
yourself," . . . Wryly humorous . . . and moving . . . Most of all
it is an honest summoning of great hardship that never entirely
closes the door on possibility . . . "The Year of the Runaways"
needs no affectations to announce its timeliness. As the sheer
number of displaced peoples in Europe threatens to overwhelm any
capacity for empathy, Mr. Sahota's superb novel helps to make the
reality of migrants a little less unimaginable and a little more
human. * Wall Street Journal *
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. -- Cressida Connolly * Spectator *
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. -- Marian Ryan * 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. -- Lucy Daniel * 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. -- John Harding, 'The year's best novels', 2015 * Daily
Mail *
Tolstoy and Steinbeck are not exaggerated comparisons for the sweep
and power of Sahota's second novel about five immigrant men living
in England illegally and what they went through to get there *
Boston Globe *
If you think literature is at its best when it combines the
political with the personal, this is the perfect book for you.
Sunjeev Sahota humanizes harrowing news headlines in the most
intimate way; stories about migrant workers and so-called
"Untouchables" are carefully captured with painterly details and
empathy. The characters - three Indian men and a British-Indian
woman they meet as they emigrate from India to England - lodged in
my brain and stayed there, months after I put this book down to
engage with others that I soon forgot . . . an important story
about duty and love, beautifully told * NPR *
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