The Covenant of Water

Abraham Verghese

From the New York Times-bestselling author of Cutting for Stone comes a magisterial new epic of love, faith and medicine.

Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water follows a family in southern India that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning. At the turn of the century a twelveyear-old girl is sent by boat to meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time at their wedding. From this poignant beginning a gripping and unexpected family story unfolds: an exploration of love and marriage, and a hymn to progress in medicine and human understanding.

A shimmering evocation of a lost India, The Covenant of Water is one of the most masterful literary novels published in recent years.

‘What a sure faith this novel is – what an agreement with language. What a glorious story of land and family. What a brilliant path written across generations.’ Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

‘This majestic, sweeping story of family secrets is intimate and profound.’ Dani Shapiro

Abraham Verghese’s previous novel, Cutting for Stone, spent 107 weeks as a New York Times bestseller and sold more than 2 million copies worldwide. It was translated into more than twenty languages. Verghese lives and practices medicine in California where he is a professor and Vice Chair of the Department of Medicine at Stanford University.