23 February 2026
We are pleased to announce that Gurnaik Johal has been shortlisted for the Charlotte Aitken Trust Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award for his debut novel Saraswati. Johal is one of four authors chosen by chair and Sunday Times chief literary critic Johanna Thomas-Corr, alongside fellow judges Caleb Femi, Esther Freud, Graham Norton, Sathnam Sanghera and Lea Ypi. Previous winners of this prestigious prize include Zadie Smith, Robert Macfarlane, Sally Rooney and Max Porter.
Johal will join his fellow shortlistees at the annual shortlist event hosted at the Barbican Centre and chaired by Booker Prize-winner Bernardine Evaristo on Monday 23rd March. Tickets can be purchased here.
The winner will be announced on Tuesday 24th March at an awards ceremony in east London.
About Saraswati
A masterpiece debut novel from one of the UK’s most exciting young writers, for fans of David Mitchell, Deepti Kapoor and Zadie Smith
AN OBSERVER BEST NEW NOVELIST 2025
SHORTLISTED FOR THE WATERSTONES DEBUT FICTION PRIZE 2025
A BOOK OF THE YEAR IN THE INDEPENDENT, TELEGRAPH, NERVE AND GUARDIAN
‘An ambitious, stylishly delivered novel … Reminiscent of Salman Rushdie’ OBSERVER
‘Johal has written a major novel, and at his very first attempt’ TELEGRAPH, 5-STAR REVIEW
When the waters of the Saraswati, a river of legend, start to rise in a corner of northern India, seven scattered descendants of a forbidden marriage are unexpectedly swept up in its current.
Satnam, adrift from his life in London, is drawn into a contentious scheme to restore the river. Nathu, an archaeologist, ventures from Nairobi to a dig site that might reveal artefacts of a lost civilisation. And elsewhere in former lands of empire – in Singapore, Canada, Mauritius and Pakistan – the ripples are felt across generations. Gurnaik Johal’s panoramic debut deftly animates the passions that bind us to our histories and each other.
‘A rich tapestry, occasionally bewildering, often beguiling’ THE NEW YORK TIMES
About Gurnaik Johal
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.
