Rai was born in Leicester in 1971, to Punjabi parents. [1] At the age of eleven, he read The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole by Sue Townsend, which inspired him to take up writing. He has also cited Roald Dahl as an early influence on his writing. [2] He attended Judgemeadow Community College, moving to Wyggeston and Queen Elizabeth I College for sixth form. Bali Rai was born in 1971 and raised as a working class Punjabi in Leicester. He grew up in a deprived area of Leicester, a city which is almost unique in terms of cultural mix and his style of writing is firmly grounded in the reality that he has seen around him since he was a child. The senior school he attended was about 80% BAME - 20% white children in terms of ethnic makeup.

His first book, (un)arranged marriage, created a huge amount of interest and won many awards, including the Angus Book Award and the Leicester Book of the Year. It was also shortlisted for the prestigious Branford Boase first novel award. Rani and Sukh and The Whisper were both shortlisted for the Booktrust Teenage Prize. And the winner is..." North East Teenage Book Award. North East Teenage Book Award . Retrieved 16 January 2018.

Book of the Year 2006 – award ceremony". Leicester City Council. Leicester City Council. Archived from the original on 17 January 2018 . Retrieved 16 January 2018. Four Thought, Series 2, Bali Rai: Stop Talking About Race". BBC Radio 4. British Broadcasting Corporation . Retrieved 15 January 2018. Ocr tesseract 4.1.1 Ocr_detected_lang en Ocr_detected_lang_conf 1.0000 Ocr_detected_script Latin Ocr_detected_script_conf 0.9632 Ocr_module_version 0.0.11 Ocr_parameters -l eng Old_pallet IA-NS-2000222 Openlibrary_edition Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2021-02-05 16:01:04 Boxid IA40056302 Camera USB PTP Class Camera Collection_set printdisabled External-identifier

urn:lcp:ranisukh0000raib:lcpdf:15e9c1e9-354e-4c6f-b719-0e8d846a896e Foldoutcount 0 Identifier ranisukh0000raib Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t6rz9cj3h Invoice 1652 Isbn 0552548901 Southern Schools Book Award 2015 Presentation Evening". Southern Schools Book Award. Southern Schools Book Award. Archived from the original on 16 January 2018 . Retrieved 16 January 2018.Bali Rai has been writing short stories and poetry since the age of eight. As a child he made up wild and exciting stories and his imagination has been vivid ever since. At school he excelled at English language and told his teachers that he would one day be a writer. Tidigare mottagare av Silverstjärnor". IBBY Sverige. International Board on Books for Young People . Retrieved 16 January 2018. In a world where everyone is already prejudiced against other cultures, the last thing we need is someone writing abook like Rani and Sukh. It practically promotes teenage sex and is full of stereotypical characters (The bossy dad, the timid mum, the dominating brothers) and Indians just aren't like that. If anyone wanted an idea of what modern Indian people were like I'd recomment anything by Chetan Bhagat, especially 2 States.

Rani & Sukh, which Rai described as a "true mash-up of Shakespeare, Bollywood and Punjabi folk tales", was published in 2004 and later became a GCSE set-text. [1] He has also written several books for dyslexia-friendly publisher Barrington Stoke, such as Dream On and its sequel Game On. His work has been published in various anthologies, including the 2017 book Here I Stand, raising money and awareness for the human rights charity Amnesty International. First novel I have read by Bali Rai and I have ‘Unarranged marriage’ on my reading pile as well. Interesting mirrored structure between 60s Punjab and more modern Leicester - I enjoyed some of the window into a different cultural world, but it did not have the zip and fizz of the clash of cultures in ‘Anita and me’ for example. Clearly the subject matter here was much darker.Well that was sad! Unlike most films I watch, I kinda wanted a happy ending or some closure with this book but the tragic cycle repeated itself. I suppose it is better finished that way. Teenage Book Award 2015 to be launched on 23 September". Shropshire Newsroom. Shropshire Council . Retrieved 16 January 2018. Redbridge Children's Book Awards". London Borough of Redbridge. London Borough of Redbridge . Retrieved 16 January 2018.