| Award-winning author Gurnaik Johal’s scintillating, Saraswati, an Observer Best Debut Novel 2025, sets India’s past in collision with a rivalrous future in a moving and all-consuming novel from one of the UK’s most feted young writers.
Ariel Saramandi’s collection of essays, Portrait of an Island on Fire, is a searing account of Mauritius at a crucial moment in its history, examining colonialism’s impact on government policy, the environment, education and much more.
Don’t miss this opportunity to hear from two exceptional talents and their essential publications, published by two of our favourite independent publishers, Fitzcarraldo and Serpent’s Tail.
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Praise for Saraswati
‘Saraswati most certainly delivers, darting thrillerishly around the world to fold chewy themes of empire, populism and global warming into a cross-generational epic’ – The Observer
‘A surging, roaring, deluge of a novel, which ebbs and flows with a flood of wonderfully overlapping stories. I absolutely loved it’ – Jon McGregor
Praise for Portrait of an Island on Fire
‘These overlapping essays form a coruscating portrait of a place and make for a searing indictment of our times.’ – Lucy Caldwell
‘This important book is both heartbreaking and a wake-up call: is it too late to act? A small, supposedly paradisiac island is teetering on a brink – a mirror of our world. But who really cares?’ – Ananda Devi
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