I despise the term "British-Asian writer". It is almost as annoying and meaningless as "post-colonial". Frankly, I see myself as a British writer. Or maybe just "writer". I'd rather be mentioned in the same breath as Catherine O'Flynn or, in my dreams, Jonathan Coe, than alongside the names of the authors on this list.
But I chose the theme because certain books did open up the British Asian experience, without which people like me wouldn't even have had the courage to begin. Top of the list is Hanif Kureishi's The Buddha of Suburbia (1990), which feels as fresh now as it did when it was first published. Kureishi was about a decade ahead of the curve when it came to identity and multiculturalism. Hats off to the guy.
After him, a man with the same initials: Hari Kunzru. He, like Kureishi, paints on a very wide canvas. The Impressionist (2002) was an important book for me, dealing with, among other things, the issue of miscegenation. A few years earlier, Meera Syal showed that British-Asian family stories could have popular appeal with the charming Anita and Me (1996), while, a few years later, Nikita Lalwani showed the darker side of Asian family life in her Booker-longlisted novel Gifted (2007).
Finally, there is Gautam Malkani's Londonstani (2006). There was a lot of hype about this book when it came out, hype which, oddly, distracted people from its originality and freshness. I reread it last year and was amazed at how it, uniquely, captured a particular phase of the British-Asian second-generation experience. People will look back at it and consider it a very important British novel.
Sathnam Sanghera's Marriage Material (William Heinemann, £14.99) is out now
