Sarwat Chadda biography
Sarwat Chadda’s love of storytelling began with his first game of Dungeons and Dragons. Face-to-face with his friends he spent long nights creating dark tales of adventure, weaving in real history, myths and legends from all sources, but most heavily from the Crusades. His passion is for the epic heroes of that period like Saladin and Richard the Lionheart, the paragons of Islam and Christendom. It was the Crusades that gave birth to the Knights Templar, so it was inevitable their mysterious history would be at the heart of his modern interpretation.
In spite of this early love of stories, he went on to become an engineer, but harboured dreams of writing. These came to fruition when in 2007 he won an ‘Undiscovered Voices’ writing competition, bringing him to the attention of several publishers and resulting in a hotly contested auction for Devil’s Kiss – which Puffin won.
Brought up a Muslim and married to a vicar’s daughter, inspired by his two daughters, Sarwat created Billi SanGreal, a heroine of both cultures. He and his family live in London, and if Billi has a home anywhere it’s the ancient and dark alleyways of this city. The mix of backgrounds informs his writing, which is urban, edgy, contemporary and gripping. He is a distinctive new voice in teen fiction.
May 1st 2009 interview with Sarwat Chadda
Sarwat Chadda, brought up a Muslim and married to a vicar’s daughter, is a distinctive new voice in teen fiction. Devil’s Kiss is his debut novel; a fast-paced, action-packed urban fantasy set in his home city of London. Sarwat kindly spoke to Fantasy Book Review in May 2009. [...]