Preti Taneja Bio

Preti Taneja is a British writer, screenwriter and educator. She is currently professor of world literature and creative writing at Newcastle University. Her first novel, We That Are Young, won the Desmond Elliott Prize and was shortlisted for several awards, including the Republic of Consciousness Prize, the Prix Jan Michalski, and the Shakti Bhatt Prize.

In 2005, a film she co-wrote was shortlisted for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Taneja’s second book, Aftermath, is an account of the 2019 London Bridge terror attack, and describes her knowledge of the victims, as well as her experience having previously taught the perpetrator of the attacks in a prison education programme. It won the Gordon Burn Prize for 2022.

Preti Taneja is the author of the novel We That Are Young (Alfred A. Knopf, 2018) and the nonfiction book Aftermath (Transit Books, 2021). Her work has received the Desmond Elliott Prize, a Philip Leverhulme Prize in Languages and Literatures, and The Gordon Burn Prize.