The Year of the Runaways

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize.

Sweeping between India and England, from childhood and the present day. Sunjeev Sahota's unforgettable novel about illegal immigrants is a story of dignity in the face of adversity. For fans of Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance.

The Year of the Runaways tells of the bold dreams and daily struggles of an unlikely family thrown together by circumstance.

Thirteen young men live in a house in Sheffield, each in flight from India and in desperate search of a new life.

Tarlochan, a former rickshaw driver, will say nothing about his past in Bihar. Avtar has a secret that binds him to protect the chaotic Randeep. Randeep, in turn, has a visa-wife in a flat on the other side of town: a clever, devout woman whose cupboards are full of her husband's clothes, in case the immigration men surprise her with a call.

The heart-stopping political novel about the desperate life of illegal immigrants, from one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists 2013, republished into the Picador Collection.

'The Grapes of Wrath for the 21st century' – Washington Post

'A writer who knows how to make you stay up late at night to learn what happens next . . . a brilliant and beautiful novel' – author of Home Fire, Kamila Shamsie, Guardian