Description
By (author) Verghese Abraham
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From the New York Times-bestselling author of Cutting for Stone comes a stunning and magisterial new epic of love, faith and medicine, set in Kerala, South India.
Named a Most Anticipated Book by the Washington Post, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Oprah Daily, Publishers Weekly (Top 10), Literary Hub and BookPage
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 – and in Kerala, water is everywhere.
At the turn of the century a twelve-year-old girl, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time. From this poignant beginning, the young girl and future matriarch – known as Big Ammachi – will witness unthinkable changes at home and at large over the span of her extraordinary life, full of the joys and trials of love and the struggles of hardship.
A shimmering evocation of a lost India and of the passage of time itself, The Covenant of Water is a hymn to progress in medicine and to human understanding, and a humbling testament to the hardships undergone by past generations for the sake of those alive today. Imbued with humour, deep emotion and the essence of life, it is one of the most masterful literary novels published in recent years.
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What a joy…to experience the exquisite, uniquely literary delight of all the pieces falling into place in a way one really did not see coming…
By God, he”s done it again.
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Verghese – who gifts the matriarch his mother”s name and even some of her stories – illuminates colonial history, challenges castes and classism, and exposes injustices, all while spectacularly spinning
what will undoubtedly be one of the most lauded, awarded, best-selling novels of the year.
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Verghese outdoes himself with this
grand and stunning tribute to 20th-century India
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A literary landmark, a monumental treatment of family and country, as sprawling in scope as Edna Ferber”s Giant . . . Writing with compassion and insight, Verghese creates distinct characters in Dickensian profusion, and his language is striking… Throughout, there are joy, courage and devotion, as well as tragedy
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Intensely moving…The story is told so exquisitely and the characters, whose lives cross and connect as the water crosses and connects the land, are so rich and vibrant, I feel as though I have walked all those years alongside them…It was
an absolute privilege to read this novel.
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From the very first page of Abraham Verghese”s The Covenant of Water, I was overtaken with joy. Truly, I caught my breath, absorbing such beauty.
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.
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The Covenant of Water is
a brilliant novel, one I feel lucky to experience. It is enthralling; its conjured worlds vigorous and astonishing; its characters so real they call me back to their lives. I wanted to read this book for whole days and nights, and do little else.
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This
majestic, sweeping story of family secrets – their curse, their legacy, and their cure – is intimate and profound. Abraham Verghese takes us on a journey across nearly a century and more than one continent, all the while dazzling with his rich, elegant prose. Verghese is a literary legend at the height of his extraordinary powers.
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