Book: The Year of the Runaways by Sunjeev Sahota

The story of three men from India who come to the UK for love rather than work and the British woman they met. Their love is for their family back home from whom they keep the degrading hardship they endure. One is from a low caste who has lost everything and has no-one to go back to. The other is the son of a government worker who lost everything through mental illness. And the final one is doing this both for his girlfriend and his own family who plan to follow him to the UK.

The men have given everything, including a kidney, to be here and face back-breaking hardship every day with bouts of homelessness, illness and hunger. And yet they never reveal any of their struggles to their family.

The Year of the Runaways is as compelling as it is disturbing, and heartbreaking as it is informative. Throughout, we learn the back stories of each man and a little bit about the employers who hire them illegally, knowing the men have nowhere else to turn. Most evocative is the story of the devoutly religious young woman who becomes a visa wife to one. During that year, we see her deep beliefs unravel as slowly as the hair when she takes her turban off.

I’ve never understood why people come to the UK when it is so much tougher for them to graft under a strange sky. This book’s impact will stay with me for a long time.

A chance charity shop purchase that I have recommended to several people already.