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 debut deftly animates the passions that bind us to our histories, our lands and each other.
Gurnaik Johal is a writer from West London and an Observer Best New Novelist 2025. 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, his debut novel, was shortlisted for the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize.