China Room

The author of the multi-prize-winning The Year of the Runaways returns with a novel of forbidden love that echoes across the generations

'China Room is the kind of novel that reminds you why you fell in love with reading' Open Book, BBC Radio 4

Shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize 2022
Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2021
Longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2022
Longlist for the Ondaatje Prize 2022

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

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 contemplation and recovery, finally gathering the strength to return home.

Readers love CHINA ROOM:
***** Amazing... I could not put it down!
***** The characters jump off the pages... Beautiful
***** Powerful and heart-wrenching
***** Wonderful... I read it in one sitting
***** Gripping storytelling... An easy five stars