Most Popular Books by Abraham Verghese

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the author of The Covenant of Water: A beautifully written, page-turning family saga of Ethiopia and America, doctors and patients, exile and home. • “Filled with mystical scenes and deeply felt characters.... Verghese is something of a magician as a novelist.” —USA Today Marion and Shiva Stone are twin brothers born of a secret union between a beautiful Indian nun and a brash British surgeon. Orphaned by their mother’s death and their father’s disappearance, bound together by a preternatural connection and a shared fascination with medicine, the twins come of age as Ethiopia hovers on the brink of revolution. Moving from Addis Ababa to New York City and back again, Cutting for Stone is an unforgettable story of love and betrayal, medicine and ordinary miracles—and two brothers whose fates are forever intertwined. This sweeping, emotionally riveting novel that "shows how history and landscape and accidents of birth conspire to create the story of a single life" (Los Angeles Times).

The memoir and first book from the author of the beloved New York Times bestseller Cutting for Stone. Nestled in the Smoky Mountains of eastern Tennessee, the town of Johnson City had always seemed exempt from the anxieties of modern American life. But when the local hospital treated its first AIDS patient, a crisis that had once seemed an “urban problem” had arrived in the town to stay. Working in Johnson City was Abraham Verghese, a young Indian doctor specializing in infectious diseases. Dr. Verghese became by necessity the local AIDS expert, soon besieged by a shocking number of male and female patients whose stories came to occupy his mind, and even take over his life. Verghese brought a singular perspective to Johnson City: as a doctor unique in his abilities; as an outsider who could talk to people suspicious of local practitioners; above all, as a writer of grace and compassion 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.

When a tennis ritual evolves between Dr. Abraham Verghese and his medical student, David, a former professional tennis play, it rekindles the author''s romance with tennis that began as a child. Their meetings on the court and in the hospital in the border city of El Paso eas the pain of Verghese''s disintergrating marriage and soften his sense of alienation as a foreigner. As the friendship between the two men grows, the bonds between them deepen. They are in turn professor and student, confessor and keeper of secrets. aWhen David succumbs to a ghost of his past, his life is sent spiraling out of control. Forced to come to terms with David''s tragic fate, Verghese gains a profound new understanding of the deepest meaning of friendship.

OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK • INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • SUBJECT OF A SIX-PART SUPER SOUL PODCAST SERIES HOSTED BY OPRAH WINFREY 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.

This fiction is set in Nedumanoor, in south Kerala, an imaginary village. The time scale of the story spans from the 1930’s to the next millennium with three generations in focus. Kunj, a school dropout was deeply in love with a beautiful girl, Marria. However, Marria was not smitten by him. Read how Kunj managed to marry her and from then on how Marria became a “living dowry” for his family. Several people and social factors controlled how life proceeded for Marria in that society. The story has exploitation of women, skewed romances, a wrestling match, marriage brokering, school teachers, Church pastors, and so on. All these are woven to make an interesting reading and an insight into the rural life that once existed in Kerala, the state which has the sobriquet “God’s own country”. Do these happen even today? It is for the readers’ to judge.

At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade''s worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated. When Breath Becomes Air chronicles Kalanithi''s transformation from a naive medical student "possessed," as he wrote, "by the question of what, given that all organisms die, makes a virtuous and meaningful life" into a neurosurgeon at Stanford working in the brain, the most critical place for human identity, and finally into a patient and new father confronting his own mortality. What makes life worth living in the face of death? What do you do when the future, no longer a ladder toward your goals in life, flattens out into a perpetual present? What does it mean to have a child, to nurture a new life as another fades away? These are some of the questions Kalanithi wrestles with in this profoundly moving, exquisitely observed memoir. Paul Kalanithi died in March 2015, while working on this book, yet his words live on as a guide and a gift to us all. "I began to realize that coming face to face with my own mortality, in a sense, had changed nothing and everything," he wrote. "Seven words from Samuel Beckett began to repeat in my head: ''I can''t go on. I''ll go on.''" When Breath Becomes Air is an unforgettable, life-affirming reflection on the challenge of facing death and on the relationship between doctor and patient, from a brilliant writer who became both.

''Een epos van goddelijke allure.'' ***** Humo ''Verbluffend epos.'' De Morgen De nieuwe roman van de auteur van de bestseller De heelmeesters: een groots opgezet en fabelachtig geschreven familie-epos tegen de achtergrond van het India van de twintigste eeuw Zuid-India, begin vorige eeuw. Een jonge bruid reist per boot met haar echtgenoot naar haar nieuwe thuis. Ze hebben elkaar die dag voor het eerst ontmoet bij het altaar. Hij is een wat oudere weduwnaar, zwijgzaam en net zo imposant als de olifant die hem helpt op het land. Ze wonen diep landinwaarts, in een wereld van riviertjes en kanalen, een netwerk van meren en lagunes, een doolhof van binnenwateren en lotusvijvers. Na verloop van tijd maken de angst en heimwee van de jonge bruid plaats voor innige liefde voor haar man en diens zoontje, en krijgt ze de bijnaam Big Ammachi (grote mama). Maar dan vindt er een tragedie plaats. Zo komt ze achter het bestaan van ''de Aandoening'': een mysterie dat in elke generatie van de familie speelt en waardoor er telkens weer iemand op raadselachtige wijze verdrinkt in meertjes, plassen en ander ondiep water. Het verbond van het water vertelt het verhaal van Big Ammachi en haar zoon Philipose, die wordt gehinderd door een lichte vorm van ''de Aandoening'' maar zich toch ontwikkelt tot een gerenommeerd schrijver. Het is ook het verhaal van haar briljante kleindochter Mariamma, die een heel ander pad inslaat en een opleiding tot chirurg volgt om het raadsel dat haar familie in zijn greep houdt op te lossen. De ontdekking van een gecodeerde stamboom en de aantekeningen van haar vader, een dwangmatige dagboekschrijver, wijzen haar de weg, maar brengen ook nieuwe geheimen aan het licht die haar in de kern van haar wezen raken. In de pers ''Een verteller pur sang. In prachtige zinnen schetst de auteur het leven met angst als start, liefde als gevolg, en daarna een tragedie.'' Reformatorisch Dagblad ''Abraham Verghese portretteert het India van de twintigste eeuw op onnavolgbare wijze. Het verbond van het water is een schitterende roman vol onderling verbonden verhalen. [...] Verghese weet hoe je een verhaal moet vertellen. [...] De taal van Verghese is even gemakkelijk als meeslepend. Zijn zinnen zijn vaak beeldend, of scherp en ook de humor ontbreekt niet. Op overtuigende en natuurlijke wijze legt Verghese verbanden tussen de verschillende verhaallijnen en brengt hij zijn personages tot leven. [...] Het verbond van het water is een boeiende, meeslepende roman, aangrijpend en ontroerend.'' Nederlands Dagblad ''Dit epische verhaal bruist van lyriek en spanning en neemt je mee door de tijd en continenten. Tijdens het lezen moest ik vaak stoppen om mezelf eraan te herinneren adem te halen. Ik kon het boek niet wegleggen tot de allerlaatste pagina. Het is zeer meeslepend!'' Oprah Winfrey (Oprah''s 101st Book Club Pick) ''Verghese overtreft zichzelf met dit grootse en verbluffende eerbetoon aan het India van de twintigste eeuw.'' Publishers Weekly (starred review) ''Groots, spectaculair, meeslepend en zeer boeiend. Verghese heeft een talent voor spanning, en zijn gemakkelijke omgang met taal sleept je moeiteloos door het verhaal heen, waardoor je nauwelijks beseft dat je decennium na decennium en pagina na pagina doorploegt.'' New York Times Book Review

Travancore, Costa di Malabar, 1900. Una ragazzina di dodici anni cerca di prendere sonno tra le braccia di sua madre. Domani lascerà la casa in cui è cresciuta per andare sposa all’uomo cui è stata promessa. Colui che diventerà suo marito, il nuovo padrone della sua vita, ha trent’anni di piú, è vedovo, con un figlio ancora bambino. La piccola sposa va incontro al suo futuro cosí come è stato deciso da altri, come hanno fatto sua madre e la madre di sua madre prima di lei. «Il giorno piú brutto nella vita di una ragazza è il giorno del matrimonio. Poi, se Dio vuole, le cose migliorano» le viene detto. Il vedovo è un buon partito, come loro è parte di quell’antichissima comunità di cristiani convertiti da san Tommaso diciotto secoli prima, e per qualche strano motivo accetta una moglie senza una rupia di dote, anche se si mormora che la sua stirpe sia afflitta da una strana maledizione: in ogni generazione almeno una persona muore affogata. E in quello che oggi si chiama Kerala l’acqua è ovunque, plasma la terra in una trina di laghi e lagune, accompagna col suo canto sommesso le esistenze, si nutre dei monsoni, collega tutto nel tempo e nello spazio. La sposa viene accolta con affetto nella nuova casa e, nell’arco della sua lunga, straordinaria vita, conosce la gioia di un grande amore, patisce il dolore di infinite perdite, assiste a cambiamenti epocali. La sua famiglia si espanderà e si ritirerà con le nascite e le morti. Finché arriverà una nipote che porterà il suo nome, studierà medicina e giungerà a una scoperta sconvolgente. Evocazione luminosa di un’India in cammino verso la sua trasformazione politica e culturale, celebrazione di un popolo antico immerso in una natura ancora prepotente, Il patto dell’acqua è il nuovo romanzo di Abraham Verghese, «che espone il lettore a una bellezza cui altrimenti non potrebbe accedere» (The New York Times); un libro-mondo di straordinaria potenza che custodisce tutti gli eventi preziosi dell’esperienza umana. «Una prosa sorretta da una profonda e coerente architettura morale dell’animo umano. Un romanzo grandioso, spettacolare, coinvolgente». The New York Times «Con maestria, Verghese plasma le vite dei suoi protagonisti a colpi di guerre, monsoni, carestie, pestilenze e inondazioni su una scena grandiosa come quella del Dottor Živago, pur senza perdere lo sguardo intimo sulle piccole cose». The Washington Post «Abraham Verghese racconta la saga di una famiglia attraverso un secolo di cambiamenti epocali, senza mai dimenticare che l’amore e la gentilezza d’animo possono vincere sulla violenza». Los Angeles Times «Mentre leggevo Il patto dell’acqua ogni tanto dovevo fermarmi e ricordarmi di respirare». Oprah Winfrey

È l''estate del 1967 nel New Jersey e Ravi Ramanathan, tredici anni, ha tutte le carte in regola per diventare un prodigio del tennis. Il padre, chirurgo, incoraggia la sua ambizione, mentre la madre sogna che il loro unico figlio segua le orme paterne. Circondato dall’amore dei genitori, Ravi guarda col tedio del ragazzino alla loro routine quotidiana e alle piccole tradizioni di casa. Poi, all’improvviso, tutto cambia e, nello spazio di una sola notte, Ravi deve dire addio alla sua adolescenza. Con un estratto dal prossimo libro di Abraham Verghese, Tennis Partner.

Una historia apasionante que sigue a sus protagonistas a través de la India, África y América a lo largo de cinco décadas. 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