Taneja was born in the United Kingdom, daughter of pioneering Indian cookery writer and food entrepreneur Meera Taneja.[2] and grew up in Letchworth, Hertfordshire,[3] where she attended St Francis College,[4]
She studied theology, religion, and philosophy along with Sanskrit at St. John's College, Cambridge University.[5] She went on to complete two post-graduate qualifications - a P.G. Dip. in print journalism from City University, London, and an M.A. degree in creative writing from Royal Holloway University, London, before completing a doctorate in creative writing from Royal Holloway University.[5]
Teaching, editing, and film
Taneja initially worked as a reporter for a non-governmental organization, covering human rights issues, and particularly focusing on the American invasion of Iraq in 2003.[5] She is the editor of Visual Verse, an online magazine of poetry and art,[6] and is a contributing editor for The White Review[7] and for the publisher And Other Stories.[5] She has been a judge for several literary awards, including The White Review Short Story Prize, the Wasafiri Prize, the inaugural Orwell Prize for Political Fiction, and the Desmond Elliott Prize.[5] In December 2021, along with So Mayer she was appointed to chair English PEN's translation advisory group.[8] She is currently Professor of World Literature and Creative Writing at Newcastle University.[5]
Taneja and Ben Crowe co-wrote the screenplay for a film titled The Man Who Met Himself, which was nominated for the Palme d'Or for short films at the Cannes Film Festival in 2005.[9][10] In 2013, she wrote and produced a feature film, Verity's Summer.[11]
Taneja's second book, Aftermath, deals with the circumstances of the 2019 London Bridge terror attack.[16] The perpetrator of the attack, Usman Khan, had attended a creative writing course that Taneja had taught at HMP Whitemoor as part of a prison education programme called Learning Together, and the attack was conducted while Khan attended a Learning Together conference on licence.[17] Although Taneja had been invited to attend the conference, she did not go, but personally knew one of the victims of the attack as her colleague in the education programme.[14]Aftermath is an account of the incident, told through poetry, journalism and Taneja's own memoirs.[14] It won the Gordon Burn Prize for 2022.[1]