The Covenant Of Water (an Oprah’s Book Club Selection)

By (author) Verghese Abraham
Short description/annotation:
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.
Description:

OPRAH''S BOOK CLUB PICK
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
SUBJECT OF A SIX-PART SUPER SOUL PODCAST SERIES HOSTED BY OPRAH WINFREY
ONE OF BARACK OBAMA''S BEST BOOKS OF 2023
WINNER OF THE VIKING AWARD FOR FICTION WITH A SENSE OF PLACE

''One of the best books I''ve read in my entire life. It''s epic. It''s transportive . . . It was unputdownable!'' Oprah Winfrey, OprahDaily.com

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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One of the best books I''ve read in my entire life. It''s epic. It''s transportive . . . It was unputdownable!
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Splendid, enthralling...this is why literature, in all its comforting and challenging forms, matters
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Majestic...life-affirming, compassionate, and gripping from start to finish
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Grand, spectacular, sweeping and utterly absorbing
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An important book for its efforts in documenting times and places most readers would be too young to have witnessed. It is also a tribute to the scientific progress that has made human lives healthier, and the sacrifices made by previous generations.
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Deliciously inventive.... Over the course of three generations, two seemingly disparate, deeply connected narratives unfold in an ode to India, family and medical marvels
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An immense, immersive work, brimming with interconnected storylines that meander and converge like great river tributaries . . . The novel encompasses intense passion and tragedy, as well as a medical mystery . . . An essential, even healing feat of imagination, a whole world to get lost in
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An epic melodrama of medicine
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Verghese''s novel traces a family''s evolution from 1900 through the 1970s, with intimacy swept up into widescreen pageantry in the manner of "Dr. Zhivago." This grandly ambitious, impassioned work is a magnificent feat.
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Much will be written about Abraham Verghese''s multigenerational South Indian novel in the coming months and years...Ever the skillful surgeon, Verghese threads meaningful connections between macrocosmic and microcosmic details so elegantly that they are often barely noticeable at first
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Fourteen years in the making, Abraham Verghese''s The Covenant of Water was worth the wait . . . A massive achievement. Rarely ca