Roopa Farooki was born in Lahore, Pakistan in 1974, to a Pakistani father and Bangladeshi mother, and is the youngest of three sisters. She moved to the UK when she was seven months old, and was brought up in central London. She read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at New College, Oxford, had a brief period as a graduate trainee accountant at Arthur Andersen, and then worked in advertising for several years, at Saatchi & Saatchi and JWT, developing campaigns for brands such as Rolex, Shell, Andrex, Hewlett-Packard, Sunsilk and Veet.

Roopa left advertising in 2004, so that she could become a full-time writer. She lives with her husband, her two young sons, and twin baby girls in south east England and south west France.

Roopa's first novel, ‘Bitter Sweets’ was nominated for the Orange New Writers Award 2007, and was followed by ‘Corner Shop’ in 2008. Her third novel, ‘The Way Things Look To Me' was voted one of The Times Top 50 Paperbacks of 2009, and longlisted for the Orange Prize and the Impac Dublin Literary Award. Her fourth novel, ‘Half Life’ was selected as No.2 on Entertainment Weekly’s Top Eighteen Books We Can’t Wait To Read this Summer. Roopa’s fifth novel, ‘The Flying Man’ will be available from January 2012.

Roopa’s novels have been published internationally and translated into a dozen languages. She teaches creative writing, and is the Ambassador for Family Counselling for the UK charity Relate (www.relate.org.uk).