Sheena Kalayil

Author

Sheena Kalayil was born in Zambia in 1970 where her parents were teachers seconded from India.  She arrived in the UK aged eighteen and, after graduating, worked all over the world in countries such as Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Tunisia, Equatorial Guinea, Slovenia and Spain, before returning to the UK, to Edinburgh in 2002. She has a doctorate in Linguistics and teaches at the University of Manchester. She is the author of three novels, and lives near Manchester with her husband and two daughters. She was Longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2026.

Sheena Kalayil was born in Zambia in 1970 where her parents were teachers seconded from India.  She arrived in the UK aged eighteen and, after graduating, worked all over the world in countries such as Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Tunisia, Equatorial Guinea, Slovenia and Spain, before returning to the UK, to Edinburgh in 2002. She has a doctorate in Linguistics and teaches at the University of Manchester. She is the author of three novels, and lives near Manchester with her husband and two daughters. She was Longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2026.

Books

  • E-Book | Pub: 09 Jun 2019
    £4.99

    By the Women’s Prize longlisted author of The Others. Vanish to a different land with Sissy Olikara. Sissy is twelve years old, living with her parents and baby brother on a school campus outside Lusaka. It is 1978, and the political situation in...

  • E-Book | Pub: 07 Jun 2018
    £4.99

    By the Women’s Prize longlisted author of The Others. Ben Martin is charming and successful: an academic who has raised money for children’s charities and worked with women’s agencies in sub-Saharan Africa, a devoted husband. But when his...

  • E-Book | Pub: 01 Jun 2017
    £4.99

    By the Women’s Prize longlisted author of The Others. After more than thirty years in London, recently-widowed Thomas Imbalil returns to India. He spends his first months in uncluttered isolation in his house overlooking the Arabian Sea, in a...