Saraswati

'A writer we will be talking about for years to come' Neel Mukherjee

'A new talent of the kind that comes along rarely' Observer

Centuries ago, they say that the holy river Saraswati flowed through what is now Punjab, alongside the Indus River and its five tributaries.

Some dismiss this as myth or allegory, but when Satnam arrives in Punjab for his grandmother's funeral, he finds water in the dried-up well behind her house. The discovery sets in motion a contentious government scheme to unearth this lost river as an act of Hindu nationalist pride.

Tracing each river as threads in a tapestry, Gurnaik Johal takes us through the lives of seven people whose histories resurface with a river that will change the course of their future forever. Ambitious, moving and brimming with rich folklore, Saraswati is a debut novel from one of Britain's most-feted young writers.

A dizzyingly transcontinental ecological 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 Observer, ‘Best new novelists for 2025’ 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 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 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 writer -- Anna Metcalfe, Granta Best of Young British Novelists 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 humour -- Daisy Hildyard, author of Emergency An ambitious panoramic portrait Guardian Praise for Gurnaik Johal : Virtuosic Guardian Exceptional Financial Times Johal has catapulted himself into the front rank -- Rahul Raina

Gurnaik Johal is a writer from West London born in 1998. He was shortlisted for the Guardian 4th Estate BAME Short Story Prize in 2018 and graduated from the University of Manchester in 2019. He works in children's publishing.

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