The Covenant of Water

From the New York Times-bestselling author of Cutting for Stone comes a stunning and magisterial epic of love,faithand medicineset in KeralaSouth Indiaand following three generations of a family seeking the answers to a strange secret The Covenant of Water is the long-awaited new novel by Abraham Verghesethe author of the major word-of-mouth bestseller Cutting for Stonewhich has sold over 1.5 million copies in the United States alone and remained on the New York Times bestseller list for over two years. Spanning the years 1900 to 1977The Covenant of Water is set in Keralaon South India’s Malabar Coastand follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generationat least one person dies by drowning–and in Keralawater is everywhere. At the turn of the centurya twelve-year-old girl from Kerala’s long-existing Christian communitygrieving the death of her fatheris sent by boat to her weddingwhere she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time. From this unforgettable new beginningthe young girl–and future matriarchknown as Big Ammachi–will witness unthinkable changes over the span of her extraordinary lifefull of joy and triumph as well as hardship and lossher faith and love the only constants. A shimmering evocation of a bygone India and of the passage of time itselfThe Covenant of Water is a hymn to progress in medicine and to human understandingand a humbling testament to the difficulties undergone by past generations for the sake of those alive today. It is one of the most masterful literary novels published in recent years.