Gurnaik and Sana will be in conversation for around one hour and this will be followed by a book signing.

Gurnaik Johal’s short story collection We Move (Serpent’s Tail, 2022) won the Somerset Maugham Award, the Tata Literature Live! Prize, was a Guardian Book of the Year, and a Hindustan Times Book of the Year. He won the Galley Beggar Press Short Story Prize in 2022, and has since had work featured in BBC Radio 4’s Short Works series, as well as in the short fiction anthology Duets (Scratch Books, 2024). Saraswati is his debut novel.

 

AN OBSERVER BEST NEW NOVELIST 2025

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WATERSTONES DEBUT FICTION PRIZE 2025

SHORTLISTED FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES YOUNG WRITER OF THE YEAR AWARD 2025

A BOOK OF THE YEAR IN THE INDEPENDENT, TELEGRAPH, NERVE AND GUARDIAN

‘An ambitious, stylishly delivered novel … Reminiscent of Salman Rushdie’ OBSERVER

‘Johal has written a major novel, and at his very first attempt’ TELEGRAPH, 5-STAR REVIEW

When the waters of the Saraswati, a river of legend, start to rise in a corner of northern India, seven scattered descendants of a forbidden marriage are unexpectedly swept up in its current.

Satnam, adrift from his life in London, is drawn into a contentious scheme to restore the river. Nathu, an archaeologist, ventures from Nairobi to a dig site that might reveal artefacts of a lost civilisation. And elsewhere in former lands of empire – in Singapore, Canada, Mauritius and Pakistan – the ripples are felt across generations. Gurnaik Johal’s panoramic debut deftly animates the passions that bind us to our histories and each other.

‘A rich tapestry, occasionally bewildering, often beguiling’ THE NEW YORK TIMES

Sana Goyal is the Editor and Publishing Director of Wasafiri magazine. She has a PhD in literary prizes from SOAS, University of London and her reviews have appeared in The Guardian, Financial Times, Times Literary Supplement, and elsewhere. She was a judge for the 2025 International Booker Prize.