China Room

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Shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize 2022
Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2021

A Daily Telegraph , Guardian and The Times Book of the Year 2021

‘Sahota combines great writing with amazing storytelling… incredibly immersive, gripping and very moving.’ BBC Radio Four, Open Book

Mehar, a young bride in rural 1929 Punjab, is trying to discover the identity of her new husband. She and her sisters-in-law, married to three brothers in a single ceremony, spend their days at work in the family’s ‘china room’, sequestered from contact with the men. When Mehar develops a theory as to which of them is hers, a passion is ignited that will put more than one life at risk.

Spiralling around Mehar’s story is that of a young man who in 1999 travels from England to the now-deserted farm, its ‘china room’ locked and barred. In enforced flight from the traumas of his adolescence – his experiences of addiction, racism, and estrangement from the culture of his birth – he spends a summer in painful contemplation and recovery, finally gathering the strength to return home.

‘The stuff of miracles’ Bryan Washington, author of Memorial
‘A gorgeous gripping read’ Kamila Shamsie, author of Home Fire
‘An extraordinarily gifted writer’ New Yorker
‘Steeped in kindness and deep humanity’ TLS