Sheena Patel is a British author and film director. She is part of the collective 4 BROWN GIRLS WHO WRITE,[1] with which she released her first published work, This Is What Love Is, as part of a set of pamphlets in a 2021 collection named for the collective.[2]
Her debut novel, I'm a Fan,[3] was published by Rough Trade Books in 2022 and received recognition including the Discover Book of the Year at the 2023 British Book Awards[4] and The Observer Best Debut Novel of 2022.[5] It was longlisted for the 2023 Women's Prize for Fiction[6] and shortlisted for other accolades.[7][8]
Early life
Patel is a second-generation immigrant[9] with a Kenyan-Indian father and a Mauritian mother. She was born in northwest London[10] and was a voracious reader from early in life, reading what she describes as a large amount of "filthy books" for her young age.[9]
She studied English literature at Queen Mary University alongside Sharan Hunjan[11] and Rosh Goyate. The three women, along with Sunnah Khan, formed 4 BROWN GIRLS WHO WRITE in 2017.
Career
The collective performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe before publishing its first collection in 2021.[1] Patel's work on I'm a Fan came after the January 6 United States Capitol attack, when she observed that "Love and hate and destruction all became intertwined, and I thought, This is what it’s like being infatuated with someone who is emotionally unavailable."[12]
