Roopa Farooki
{{Short description|British writer}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=February 2014}}
{{Infobox person
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| name = Roopa Farooki
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| birth_date = 1974
| birth_place = Lahore, Pakistan
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| nationality = British
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| education = Philosophy, politics and economics
| alma_mater = New College, Oxford
| occupation = Writer
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| notable_works = Bitter Sweets
Corner Shop
The Way Things Look to Me
Half Life
The Flying Man
The Good Children
The Cure for a Crime, A Double Detectives Medical Mystery
Diagnosis Danger, A Double Detectives Medical Mystery
Everything Is True, a junior doctor's story of life, death and grief in a time of pandemic
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| children = 4
| parents = Nasim Ahmed Farooki{{cite web|last=Hasan|first=Khalid|title=Remembering Nasir Ahmed Farooki|url=http://www.khalidhasan.net/2002/12/27/remembering-nasir-ahmed-farooki/|accessdate=21 June 2011|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110928133046/http://www.khalidhasan.net/2002/12/27/remembering-nasir-ahmed-farooki/|archivedate=28 September 2011|df=dmy-all}}
Nilofar Farooki
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| website = {{URL|roopafarooki.com}}
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Roopa Farooki is a British novelist and medical doctor. Born in Lahore, she lives between France and Great Britain. Her first novel, Bitter Sweets, was shortlisted for the 2007 Orange Award for New Writers.{{Cite web |last= |first= |date=2010-10-31 |title=My brother enemy |url=https://www.dawn.com/2010/10/31/my-brother-enemy/ |access-date=2022-06-15 |website=DAWN.COM |language=en}}
Early life and education
Farooki was born in Lahore, Pakistan,{{cite news|last=Heminsley|first=Alexandra|title=Half Life, By Roopa Farooki|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/half-life-by-roopa-farooki-1950400.html|accessdate=21 June 2011|newspaper=The Independent|date=25 April 2010}}{{cite web|last=Farooki|first=Roopa|title=About Roopa Farooki UK|url=http://www.roopafarooki.com/roopa-uk.html|accessdate=21 June 2011|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20090822154614/http://www.roopafarooki.com/roopa-uk.html|archivedate=22 August 2009|df=dmy-all}} in 1974 to a Pakistani father and Bangladeshi mother, who moved to London when she was seven months old.{{Cite web |date=2012-03-21 |title=Authors for Autistica - Roopa Farooki |url=http://www.autistica.org.uk/ebay/2010-book-auction/roopa_farooki.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120321080959/http://www.autistica.org.uk/ebay/2010-book-auction/roopa_farooki.html |archive-date=21 March 2012 |access-date=2022-06-15 }} Her father was the late Nasir Ahmad Farooki, a Pakistani novelist and a prominent figure in Pakistani literary circles in the 1960s. Roopa's father abandoned her when she was 13,{{Cite web |last=Farooki |first=Roopa |date=2007-07-27 |title=Roopa Farooki on her father - a compulsive liar |url=http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2007/jul/28/familyandrelationships.family |access-date=2022-06-15 |website=the Guardian |language=en}} later marrying a Chinese American. Her mother, Niluffer, later had a long term relationship with an English-Iraqi of Jewish descent. She had a sister, Kiron, who became a solicitor.
Despite being of both Pakistani and Bangladeshi descent, she speaks only English, because her parents were keen on assimilating into London and spoke to her in only English.{{Cite web |last=Allfree |first=Claire |date=2010-04-13 |title=Roopa Farooki: I didn't eat or sleep while writing new novel Half Life |url=https://metro.co.uk/2010/04/13/roopa-farooki-i-didnt-eat-or-sleep-while-writing-new-novel-half-life-237138/ |access-date=2022-06-15 |website=Metro |language=en}}
She won a scholarship to a private girls’ school, but on the condition she chose arts subjects at A-Level, which frustrated her ambition to become doctor.{{cite news |last=Kale |first=Sirin |date=22 January 2022 |title=The Clap for the NHS Meant Nothing |work=The Guardian |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/jan/22/the-clap-for-the-nhs-meant-nothing-novelist-turned-doctor-roopa-farooki-on-her-frontline-experience-of-covid |access-date=2022-06-16}}
Roopa studied PPE at New College, Oxford University, worked in corporate finance (at Arthur Andersen) and then as an advertising account director (at Saatchi & Saatchi and JWT), before she turned to writing fiction full-time.
Once her children were at school, she borrowed books on chemistry, biology and physics from a library, studied them for three to six months, and passed the graduate entry exam for medicine. In 2019, she completed a postgraduate degree in medicine from St George's, University of London, commencing work as a junior doctor in London and Kent.{{Cite web|title=Roopa Farooki|url=http://www.marjacq.com/roopa-farooki.html|access-date=2020-07-03|website=Marjacq|language=en}}
Novels
She wrote her first novel, Bitter Sweets, while pregnant with her first child, and renovating a house in SW France. Bitter Sweets was first published in the UK in 2007, and shortlisted for the Orange Award for New Writers that year.{{Cite web |date=2010-04-23 |title=Orange newsroom {{!}} Orange Prize for Fiction announces 2010 longlist |url=http://newsroom.orange.co.uk/2010/03/17/orange-prize-for-fiction-announces-2010-longlist-3/ |access-date=2022-02-26 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100423052104/http://newsroom.orange.co.uk/2010/03/17/orange-prize-for-fiction-announces-2010-longlist-3/ |archive-date=23 April 2010 }} She published her second novel, Corner Shop,{{Cite web |date=2011-06-29 |title=Dream Catchers |url=http://www.indiacurrents.com/articles/2009/04/25/dream-catchers |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110629202024/http://www.indiacurrents.com/articles/2009/04/25/dream-catchers |archive-date=29 June 2011 |access-date=2022-06-15 |website=India Currents}} in 2008. Her third novel, The Way Things Look To Me, was published in 2009, and was voted one of The Times Top 50 Paperbacks of 2009, long-listed for the Orange Prize 2010, and has been long-listed for the Impac Dublin Literary Award 2011.{{Cite web |date=2010-12-16 |title=International IMPAC DUBLIN Literary Award |url=http://www.impacdublinaward.ie/2011/Titles/Farooki.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101216224211/http://www.impacdublinaward.ie/2011/Titles/Farooki.htm |archive-date=16 December 2010 |access-date=2022-06-15 }} Her fourth novel, Half Life, was published in 2010,{{Cite web |date=2010-04-24 |title=Half Life, By Roopa Farooki |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/half-life-by-roopa-farooki-1950400.html |access-date=2022-02-26 |website=The Independent |language=en}}{{Cite magazine |date=2012-10-21 |title=18 Books We Can't Wait to Read This Summer |url=http://www.ew.com/ew/gallery/0%2C%2C20358746_20765554%2C00.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121021003423/http://www.ew.com/ew/gallery/0,,20358746_20765554,00.html |archive-date=21 October 2012 |access-date=2022-06-15 |magazine=Entertainment Weekly}} and was selected by Entertainment Weekly (US) as No. 2 on their list of "Eighteen Books We Can't Wait to Read This Summer";{{Cite magazine |date=2012-10-21 |title=18 Books We Can't Wait to Read This Summer {{!}} Photo 2 of 19 |magazine=Entertainment Weekly |url=http://www.ew.com/ew/gallery/0,,20358746_20765554,00.html |access-date=2022-02-26 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121021003423/http://www.ew.com/ew/gallery/0,,20358746_20765554,00.html |archive-date=21 October 2012 }} it was also nominated for the International Muslim Writers Awards 2011. Her fifth novel, The Flying Man was published in January 2012 in the UK, and has been longlisted for the Orange Prize 2012. Her sixth novel, The Good Children, was published in 2014, and was featured on BBC Radio Four Open Book. She has said this might be her final novel. Farooki has also been nominated for the Women's Prize for Fiction three times.{{Cite web|title=Roopa Farooki|url=http://www.marjacq.com/roopa-farooki.html|access-date=2020-09-19|website=Marjacq|language=en}}
Farooki's novels have been published in English internationally (in the US and Canada, UK, Australia, India, Singapore) and in translation in a dozen languages across Europe.
After graduating as a Doctor, Farooki has turned from literary fiction to children's fiction featuring female BAME protagonists, with The Double Detectives Medical Mystery series at Oxford University Press. The first book, The Cure for A Crime, was published in 2020. The second book, Diagnosis Danger, came out in 2021.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, she worked in an acute medical ward. Her memoir of the first 40 days of the pandemic as a junior doctor, following the loss of her sister Kiron to breast cancer, Everything is True: a Junior Doctor’s Story of Life, Death and Grief in a Time of Pandemic, was published by Bloomsbury in 2022, and headed the list of the Guardian's Book Highlights of 2022. This covered the pressures of her work and its difficult impact on her family, partly by imagined conversations with her late sister. She said she found the weekly clap for the NHS to be a performative, futile gesture. She continues to work full time as an NHS doctor, specialised in Internal Medicine, alongside her writing and lecturing.
Personal life
Farooki cites her father as an inspiration, and has written frankly about her relationship with her father and his influence on her work in the UK national press.{{cite news|last=Farooki|first=Roopa|title=This charming man|url=https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2007/jul/28/familyandrelationships.family|accessdate=21 June 2011|newspaper=The Guardian|date=28 July 2007}} She has also written about her experiences of eczema, relationship counselling, and fertility treatment. Her recent novels have featured characters with Asperger's syndrome,{{Cite web |date=2010-08-31 |title=Autism Blog - Action For Autism |url=http://actionforautism.co.uk/category/literature/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101229084413/http://actionforautism.co.uk/category/literature/ |archive-date=29 December 2010 |access-date=2022-06-15 |website=Action For Autism}} and bipolar disorder.
Before her sister, Kiron, died of cancer, she had advised Roopa to separate from her husband; advice she did not take.
She currently lives in southwest France and southeast England with her husband and four children, twin girls, older daughter and son. She teaches creative writing, having been a lecturer on the Masters programme in Prose Fiction at Canterbury Christ Church University and an undergraduate lecturer at the University of Kent in England. She also teaches on the Masters programme at the University of Oxford, and is the ambassador for the UK relationship counselling charity, Relate.{{cite web|title=About Us|url=http://www.relate.org.uk/about-us/index.html|accessdate=21 June 2011|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110701071544/http://www.relate.org.uk/about-us/index.html|archivedate=1 July 2011|df=dmy-all}}
Acceptance
Farooki's novels have been critically well received, and she has been compared to other British female novelists, Andrea Levy, Zadie Smith, and Monica Ali. In an interview with the Metro in 2010, headlined, "Nationality is Not The Issue", she said she was flattered by the comparisons, but said that a key difference was that she had made a deliberate decision not to focus on cultural clash in her novels, and to write universal stories.
References
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Category:Academics of the University of Kent
Category:Alumni of New College, Oxford
Category:Alumni of St George's, University of London
Category:British Asian writers
Category:British people of Bangladeshi descent
Category:Naturalised citizens of the United Kingdom
Category:Novelists from London
Category:Pakistani emigrants to the United Kingdom