Gurnaik Johal is a writer from West London. 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 is his debut novel.

"Johal's ambitious debut traces the sinuous paths of the seven siblings as history's sweeping tides displace descendants around the globe. Johal graphs an expansive arc of India across the centuries, including the cataclysmic partition of India and Pakistan, the rise of Hindu nationalism, and the wreckage wrought by environmental destruction. Focusing on the narrative forest over the trees will sweep the reader along in the story's earnest fervor."--Booklist

"An ambitious, panoramic portrait."-- "The Guardian"

"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 dizzyingly transcontinental 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."-- "The Observer, Best New Novels of the Year"

"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"

"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 write."
-- "Anna Metcalfe, 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 humor."-- "Daisy Hildyard, author of Emergency"

Publisher: Pegasus Books

Pub date: 2026-02-03

Length: 384 pages