Sunjeev Sahota, novelist: 'I admire Deborah Levy's work for its wisdom, political acuity and radicalism'

The author on Elena Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend, Chekhov's 'The Kiss', and finally getting a study

Sahota's novel, 'The Year of the Runaways' is shortlisted for The Sunday Times/Peters Fraser & Dunlop Young Writer of the Year Award (Simon Revill)

Where are you now and what can you see?

It's 9pm, the kids are in bed and I'm at our kitchen table. In the window above the sink hangs my reflection. I need a shave. Things are quiet. The cupboards are white.

What are you currently reading?

I'm late to the party, but I've finally picked up Elena Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend and am reading it alongside God's Planet by Owen Gingerich. They make good bedfellows and I'm enjoying both. After that it'll be Margaret Atwood's The Heart Goes Last, the remaining Neapolitan novels, Claudia Rankine's Citizen...

Choose a favourite author and say why you admire her/him

I admire Deborah Levy's work, for its precision and wisdom, its political acuity and radicalism. The long essay "Things I Don't Want to Know", a response to Orwell's "Why I Write", is magnificent on all sorts: writing, loneliness, aloneness, parenthood, our past selves.

Describe the room where you usually write

I'd always written sitting on the bed, but we moved house two months ago and for the first time I have a study. It's in the basement, is windowless and grey-carpeted, and contains a desk, a chair, a lightbulb and my laptop. It's fairly austere but – given how easily distracted I am – necessary.

Which fictional character most resembles you?

Maybe Ryabovich from Chekhov's 'The Kiss', for his "little spectacles" and "sloping shoulders". Perhaps also because he always seems so surprised at how quickly the good times pass.

Who is your hero/heroine from outside literature?

My dad.

Sunjeev Sahota's novel, 'The Year of the Runaways' (Picador) is shortlisted for The Sunday Times / Peters Fraser & Dunlop Young Writer of the Year Award