C. V Chauhan

I was born in a small town in the Great Rift Valley in Kenya and emigrated with my mother and six siblings to Leicester at the age of 11. My father had travelled to the UK three years before. Growing up in inner-city Leicester was hard and I was determined to break away from this cycle of deprivation by going to university. I graduated from the University of York and taught history in secondary schools in London and Birmingham, and latterly worked at a senior level in state education. From a young age I wanted to write but something always came in the way. But I recently decided to give up full-time work to focus on my ambition.