Gurnaik Johal

Gurnaik Singh Johal (born 1998) is a British writer of Indian origin. Originally from Northolt, London, he studied at the University of Manchester.[1]

Johal's debut collection of short stories, We Move, was published in 2022. Among other honours, it won the Somerset Maugham Award. His sophomore novel, Saraswati, was published in 2025.[2][3][4]

Books

We Move (2022)

We Move was published April 2022, by Serpent's Tail, and contains 17 stories:

  1. Arrival
  2. The Red River
  3. Leave to Remain
  4. Chatpata: Kaam
  5. Strange Attractor
  6. Flight Path
  7. SYM
  8. The Turn
  9. Chatpata: Ahankar
  10. Afterimage
  11. The Piano
  12. Haven Green
  13. Be More Roy
  14. Chatpata: Moh
  15. Freehold
  16. The Twelfth of Never
  17. We Move

The collection was generally well received by critics,[5][6][7][8] with both The Guardian and Hindustan Times named it one of the best books of 2022.[9][10] It won the 2023 Somerset Maugham Award[11] and the Tata Literature Live! First Book Award. Prior to the collection's publication, "Arrival" won the 2022 Galley Beggar Press Short Story Award,[12] and "The Piano" had been shortlisted for the 2018 Guardian and Fourth Estate BAME Short Story Prize.[13]

Saraswati (2025)

Saraswati was released in 2025.

The book was shortlisted for Waterstones debut fiction prize[14] and for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award.[15]

Siddhartha Deb of The New York Times praised the book as "a welcome shift from the family dramas and autofictions that have tended to dominate literary renderings of India," albeit saying that "the texture of life in this quasi-dystopic India feels thin, rendered theoretically rather than through deep engagement with lived experience."[16] Keshava Guha of The Guardian wrote that "Johal is a brilliant observer of romance: of uncertain beginnings and awkward endings," but said that the novel's "unstable blend of realism and allegory ultimately breaks down in the face of its central theme: modern Hindu nationalism... Johal’s India is led by a man called “Narayan Indra” (Indra is the Hindu rain god), whose actions and rhetoric are so cartoonish as to drain away all menace and seriousness. His millenarian ravings are a world away from actually existing Hindutva, which might gesture at past golden ages but is always laser-focused on its present-day target: India’s Muslims."[17]

References

  1. ^ Sethi, Anita (26 March 2022). "Gurnaik Johal: 'I am constantly wondering about the lives of others'". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 23 December 2024.
  2. ^ Guha, Keshava (10 June 2025). "Saraswati by Gurnaik Johal review – an ambitious Indian panorama". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 26 July 2025.
  3. ^ "We Move". Serpent's Tail. Retrieved 23 December 2024.
  4. ^ Shariatmadari, David; Jordan, Justine; Spencer, Liese (28 December 2024). "From Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie to Pope Francis: the books to look forward to in 2025". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 19 January 2025.
  5. ^ Goyal, Sana (1 April 2022). "We Move by Gurnaik Johal review – virtuosic stories of British-Punjabi life". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 23 December 2024.
  6. ^ Self, John (4 April 2022). "We Move by Gurnaik Johal review – a colourful tapestry of multicultural lives". The Observer. ISSN 0029-7712. Retrieved 19 January 2025.
  7. ^ Srinivasan, Krishna (26 April 2022). "We Move by Gurnaik Johal - "short story writing at its finest"". The Gryphon. Retrieved 16 January 2025.
  8. ^ Bhasin, Simar (21 July 2022). "Review: We Move by Gurnaik Johal". Hindustan Times. Retrieved 18 January 2025.
  9. ^ Jordan, Justine (3 December 2022). "Best fiction of 2022". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 19 January 2025.
  10. ^ "HT reviewers pick their best reads of 2022". Hindustan Times. 23 December 2022. Retrieved 18 January 2025.
  11. ^ McDonald, Teddy (29 June 2023). "'A plethora of riches' – announcing the winners of the 2023 Society of Authors' Awards". The Society of Authors. Retrieved 30 June 2023.
  12. ^ "In conversation with...Gurnaik Johal". FLO London. 28 July 2020. Retrieved 19 January 2025.
  13. ^ Armitstead, Claire (6 August 2018). "BAME short story prize shortlist ranges across modern life". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 19 January 2025.
  14. ^ Creamer, Ella (17 June 2025). "Waterstones debut fiction prize 2025 shortlist announced". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2 July 2025.
  15. ^ "Young writers and libraries recognised in UK awards". Books+Publishing. 24 February 2026. Retrieved 25 February 2026.
  16. ^ Deb, Siddhartha (9 February 2026). "Book Review: 'Saraswati,' by Gurnaik Johal". The New York Times. Retrieved 10 February 2026.
  17. ^ Guha, Keshava (10 June 2025). "Saraswati by Gurnaik Johal review – an ambitious Indian panorama". The Guardian. Retrieved 5 February 2026.


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.