The Covenant of Water

The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese is a 2023 Fiction & Literature book written by TED speaker Abraham Verghese, paired here with the talk they gave.

Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, three generations of a Christian family in Kerala, South India, suffer a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning. As the novel opens, a twelve-year-old girl is sent by boat to her wedding, where she meets her husband for the first time. She joins a prosperous household and becomes known as Big Ammachi, the matriarch of an extraordinary family that will endure hardship, celebrate triumph, and witness unthinkable changes over the coming decades.

More books by Abraham Verghese