Award-winning Chef bought by Bloomsbury
04.06.09 Victoria Gallagher rep[orting in The Bookseller

Bloomsbury has bought the rights to Jaspreet Singh's debut novel, Chef.
Alexandra Pringle, editor-in-chief, acquired world English rights (excluding Canada and India) from Natasha Daneman and Jackie Kaiser at Westwood Creative Artists.
Chef has already been published in Canada by Vehicule Press and won the Georges Bugnet Award for Fiction. It has also been shortlisted for other awards including the 2009 Commonwealth Prize for the Best Book for the Canada and Caribbean region.

Chef is about the India-Pakistan conflict from the point of view of an apprentice chef. The book is due for publication in the UK in March 2010.

Pringle said: "Here is a beautiful new voice from India. Set against the breathtaking, war-torn landscape of Kashmir, like the clear light of that region, it illuminates a passage of Indian history with tenderness, humour and lyricism. We are thrilled to be publishing this extraordinary new talent in the UK and the US."
Singh previously wrote Seventeen Tomatoes: Tales from Kashmir (Vehicule Press), which was a series of linked stories.

With this title he won the 2004 McAuslan First Book Prize.
Singh is a former research scientist and holds a PhD in chemical engineering.