About

Born in Varanasi, India, Sunny Singh was raised in various Indian cantonment towns, Islamabad, Pakistan, and New York City, USA. She read English and American Literature at Brandeis University in the USA before gaining a Masters in Spanish Literature from Jawaharlal Nehru University (India) and a PhD from the Universitat de Barcelona (Spain).

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Her debut novel, Nani’s Book Of Suicides, published in 2000, was described as a “first novel of rare scope and power.” The Spanish translation of the novel won the inaugural Mar de Letras prize in 2003. Her second book, a work of non-fiction titled Single In The City: The Independent Woman’s Handbook (2001), was a first-of-its-kind exploration of single women in contemporary India and described as “witty and insightful”. Her second novel, With Krishna’s Eyes (2006), has been commended for its “profound insight” and described as “memorable”. The Independent described her latest novel, Hotel Arcadia (2015), as “powerful and absorbing”.

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In 2017, she published a highly acclaimed study of the Indian superstar Amitabh Bachchan for the BFI Film Stars series. Her latest book A Bollywood State of Mind, a genre-defying study in commercial Hindi cinema will be published in October 2023.

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Her short stories have been published by prestigious international literary journals including The Drawbridge and World Literature Today. Her creative non-fiction and academic writing has been published across the world in key journals and anthologies. She also writes for newspapers and magazines, in Spanish and English, across the globe.

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In 2016, she launched the celebrated Jhalak Prize for literature by writers of colour. She is also a founder of the Jhalak Foundation that is focused on a range of literary, artistic and literacy initiatives in the UK and beyond.

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Sunny is Professor of Creative Writing and Inclusion in the Arts at the London Metropolitan University (UK).

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