From the New York Times-bestselling author of Cutting for Stone comes a stunning and magisterial epic of love, faith, and medicine, set in Kerala, South India, following three generations of a family seeking the answers to a strange secret

"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

An instant New York Times and indie bestseller and an Oprah Book Club Pick, The Covenant of Water has sold more than two million copies worldwide and was widely named as a best book of the year. Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, Abraham Verghese's long-awaited, masterful novel follows three generations of a Christian family in Kerala, South India, that suffers 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.

An exquisite modern classic finally available in paperback, The Covenant of Water is an unforgettable and stunning epic of love, faith, and medicine.

"A fine mix of compassion and precision . . . Verghese makes indelible narratives of his cases, and they read like wrenching short stories."—Pico Iyer

From the author of The Covenant of Water and Cutting for Stone comes a story of a doctor who was changed and shaped by his patients, medicine in the American heartland, and confronting one's deepest prejudices and fears

Abraham Verghese has garnered worldwide acclaim for his New York Times bestselling novel The Covenant of Water, selected as an Oprah's Book Club Pick and spanning the years 1900 to 1977 in Kerala, India. In his first book, My Own Country, Verghese examined an American crisis from the vantage of a small town nestled in the Smoky Mountains of eastern Tennessee, which had always seemed exempt from the anxieties of modern life. But when the local hospital treated its first AIDS patient in the 1980s, a crisis that had once seemed an "urban problem" arrived in town to stay. At the time, Abraham Verghese was a young doctor specializing in infectious diseases at a Johnson City hospital. Of necessity, he became the local AIDS expert, soon besieged by a shocking number of patients, men and women whose stories came to occupy his mind, and even take over his life. Verghese brought a singular perspective to Johnson City: a doctor unique in his abilities; an outsider who could talk to people suspicious of local practitioners; and a writer who saw that what was happening in this conservative community was both a medical and a spiritual emergency. Out of his experience comes a startling but ultimately uplifting portrait of the American heartland as it confronts—and surmounts—its deepest prejudices and fears.

Mientras la India celebra su flamante independencia, la abadesa de un convento de carmelitas en Madrás hace realidad uno de sus sueños más audaces: enviar a África dos jóvenes monjas enfermeras con la noble misión de transmitir el amor de Cristo ayudando a mitigar el dolor de los que sufren. Siete años más tarde, en el modesto hospital Missing de Adis Abeba nacen dos varones gemelos, Marion y Shiva Stone. El hecho no tendría nada de particular si no fuera porque su madre es una monja que muere en el parto y su padre un cirujano británico que desaparece sin dejar rastro. Así, los primeros años de los hermanos Stone transcurrirán en el feliz microcosmos del hospital misionero, criados por un pequeño grupo de personas que, con escasos medios y recursos, se afanan en curar a los enfermos. Con el transcurrir del tiempo, sin embargo, ese mundo cerrado y protegido en el que Marion y Shiva comparten su pasión por la medicina se resquebraja ante la presión de los acontecimientos que sacuden Etiopía y que arrastrarán a los hermanos Stone por caminos diferentes, poniendo a prueba su inquebrantable amistad.

Dotado de las virtudes de los grandes novelistas del siglo XIX, el médico y escritor Abraham Verghese -de origen indio y criado en Etiopía- ha escrito una historia apasionante que sigue a sus protagonistas a través de la India, África y América a lo largo de cinco décadas, creando así un gran fresco de un país desconocido para la mayoría.

La crítica ha dicho...
«Una obra maestra del antiguo arte de narrar historias.»
San Francisco Chronicle

«Una novela magnífica y absorbente.»
Publishers Weekly

«Verghese es un excelente escritor, lírico y controlado, sabio y compasivo.»
The New York Times Book Review

«Estupenda [...] la mejor novela del año hasta la fecha.»
The Financial Times

«¡Qué novela! Repleta de sabiduría sobre lo que nos hace humanos, nos revela la magia y la tragedia de nuestras vidas.»
Newsday

«Grandiosa, espectacular y arrolladora».
The New York Times

«Uno de los tres mejores libros que leído en toda mi vida. [...] Épico, emocionante, absorbente».
Oprah Winfrey

El pacto del agua sigue a una familia que sufre una aflicción peculiar: en cada generación, al menos una persona muere ahogada, y en Kerala el agua está en todas partes. A principios del siglo XX, una niña de doce años es enviada en barco para contraer matrimonio con un hombre de cuarenta al que no conoce. A partir de entonces, la joven y futura matriarca, conocida como Big Ammachi, será testigo de cambios impensables: una historia llena de alegrías, pruebas de amor y lucha ante las adversidades.

Evocación de una India desaparecida, imbuida de humor y emoción, El pacto del agua es un himno al entendimiento humano y al progreso de la medicina, y un testimonio de las dificultades sufridas por las generaciones pasadas por el bienestar de quienes viven ahora.

La crítica ha dicho...
«Una de las tres mejores novelas que he leído en toda mi vida. Nunca me había sentido así respecto a un libro».
Oprah Winfrey

«Gran literatura para conocer el mundo».
Babelia

«Una novela para detener el tiempo y dejarse llevar por su corriente imparable».
Vogue

«Una novela grandiosa, espectacular, arrolladora y absolutamente absorbente».
The New York Times

«Un logro literario exquisito y excepcional en el que todas las piezas encajan a la perfección».
Kirkus Reviews

«Las fortalezas técnicas de Verghese son consistentes y versátiles. [...] En todo momento, entreteje su amor insaciable y su fe en el arte y la literatura. [...] Una novela colosal, ambiciosa y apasionada: una hazaña magnífica».
The Washington Post

«Una obra inconmensurable, cautivadora».
Los Angeles Times

«Espléndida, desgarradora».
Oprah Daily

«¡Qué glorioso relato de tierra y familia! ¡Qué camino tan brillante trazado a lo largo de generaciones!».
Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

«Verghese, una leyenda literaria en la cima de su talento, nos lleva de viaje durante un siglo y por más de un continente, mientras nos deslumbra con su prosa rica y elegante».
Dani Shapiro

«Una novela brillante. Un mundo mágico vigoroso y asombroso. Unos personajes absolutamente creíbles. Me encantaría estar leyéndola días y noches sin parar».
Megha Majudmar

"Heartbreaking. . . . Indelible and haunting, [The Tennis Partner] is an elegy to friendship found, and an ode to a good friend lost."—The Boston Globe

In this powerful physician's memoir, Abraham Verghese, a doctor whose marriage is unraveling, relocates to El Paso, Texas, hoping to make a fresh start as a staff member at the county hospital. There he meets David Smith, a medical student navigating a fragile recovery from drug addiction, and the two men begin a tennis ritual that allows them to shed their inhibitions and find security in the sport they love and with each other. This friendship between doctor and intern grows increasingly rich and complex, more intimate than two men usually allow. Just when it seems nothing can go wrong, the dark beast from David's past emerges once again—and almost everything Verghese has come to trust and believe in is threatened as David spirals out of control.

INSPIRATION FOR HOW TO CREATE A LIFE OF PURPOSE, NO WOMAN LEFT BEHIND IS THE UNLIKELY STORY OF HOW ONE WOMAN LEAVES MADISON AVENUE AND TACKLES THE GLOBAL MATERNAL HEALTH CRISIS HEAD ON—PREFACED BY A POWERFUL FOREWORD BY BESTSELLING AUTHOR ABRAHAM VERGHESE.

2025 International Book Award Winner in Autobiography/Memoir

"In this rousing debut, Grant demonstrates how the faith and actions of a small group of people can save the world."—BookLife Reviews, Editor's Pick

"A call to action for compassionate advocates, and a stunning tale of how deeds triumph over platitudes."—Dr. Denis Mukwege, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize

The day a woman gives birth is also the day she is most likely to die or suffer severe injury—a sobering reality that comes into sharp focus when Kate Grant visits the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital in Ethiopia's capital. There, she sees row after row of beds occupied by young women afflicted with obstetric fistula, a childbirth injury that leaves them incontinent and too often shunned by their communities, modern-day lepers. She soon learns that surgery is the only way to end their suffering.

In No Woman Left Behind, Grant recounts her decision to abandon a promising advertising career, and the ups and downs of building Silicon Valley–based Fistula Foundation from a modest start-up into the global leader in fistula treatment. Through vivid firsthand accounts of surgeons toiling in remote corners of Africa and Asia, we see inside the fight to restore hope to some of the world's most vulnerable women.

A compassionate army of donors spanning nearly seventy countries makes such life-changing care possible. Grant demonstrates the profound power of individual action to change lives at scale, since Fistula Foundation takes no government money. No Woman Left Behind is a compelling personal journey and a how-to guide for anyone looking to make a lasting difference in the lives of others.

100% of the author's net proceeds from No Woman Left Behind will go to Fistula Foundation's Love a Sister program to fund free surgeries for women with childbirth injuries.