Saraswati

A Novel

Gurnaik Johal

As a holy river miraculously returns, seven lives change course in this masterpiece debut by a rising literary star.

Centuries ago, the myths say, the holy river Saraswati flowed through what is now Northern India. But when Satnam arrives in his ancestral village for his grandmother's funeral, he is astonished to find water in the long-dry well behind her house. The discovery sets in motion a contentious scheme to unearth the lost river and build a gleaming new city on its banks, and Satnam—adrift from his job, girlfriend, and flat back in London—soon finds himself swept up in this ferment of Hindu nationalist pride.

As the river alters Satnam's course, so it reveals buried ties to six distant relatives scattered across the globe - from an ambitious writer with her eye on legacy to a Kenyan archaeologist to a Bollywood stunt double - who are brought together in a rapidly changing India. Brimming with love, lush, violence and loss, Gurnaik Johal's magisterial novel deftly animates the passions that bind us to our histories, our lands and each other.

Gurnaik Johal is a writer from West London. His 2022 collection We Move won the Somerset Maugham Award and the Tata Literature Live! Prize. Its opening story won the Galley Beggar Short Story Prize. Saraswati is his debut novel.

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Endorsements & Reviews

"An ambitious, panoramic portrait." The Guardian

"Saraswati is an extraordinary novel: gripping, funny, epic, elegant, and full of preternatural wisdom. Johal's greatest strength is his ability to show the world as inexhaustibly fascinating, a vast and wondrous meshwork of interlocking stories. Saraswati is a major achievement, and Johal a huge talent. This should be one of the biggest novels of the year." Martin MacInnes, Booker-longlisted author of In Ascension

"A dizzyingly transcontinental epic. Saraswati most certainly delivers, darting thrillerishly around the world to fold chewy themes of empire, populism and global warming into a cross-generational epic centred on seven strangers." The Observer, Best New Novels of the Year

"A surging, roaring deluge of a novel, which ebbs and flows with a flood of wonderfully overlapping stories. I absolutely loved it."
Jon McGregor, author of Reservoir 13

"A bold, intriguing tapestry of near-future tales: part absurdist political satire, part folkloric meditation, part ecological parable, this novel pulses with a frenetic energy that brings together a cast of beguiling characters." Aube Rey Lescure, Women's Prize-shortlisted author of River East, River West

"Immersive, erudite, intimate and epic, a weaving of lives and stories, old and new, into something vast and very special. Saraswati sounds a note of hope, and a warning for our future." Preti Taneja, award-winning author of We That Are Young

"Capacious and brilliant. It has all the sweeping ambition of a great epic with the intimate genius of a master short story write."
Anna Metcalfe, author of Chrysalis

"A fast-moving action novel that sweeps through many times, people, and places—it's full of life. I loved the torrent of stories, and Johal's sharp, insightful sense of humor." Daisy Hildyard, author of Emergency