Sunny Singh was born in Varanasi, India. Her father's work with the government meant that the family regularly moved, living in various cantonments and outposts including Dehradun, Dibrugarh, Along and Teju. The family also followed her father's assignments abroad, living in Pakistan, United States and Namibia.
She attended Brandeis University where she majored in English and American Literature. She also holds a Masters Degree in Spanish Language, Literature and Culture from the Jawaharlal Nehru University and a PhD from the University of Barcelona, Spain.
She worked as a journalist and management executive in Mexico, Chile, and South Africa before returning to India in 1995 to focus on writing. She worked as a freelance writer and journalist until 2002 in New Delhi, publishing her first two books in that period. She moved to Barcelona in 2002 to work on her PhD and published her second novel in 2006.
Singh is currently the Senior Lecturer and Course Leader in Creative Writing at the London Metropolitan University.