Thirst

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Thirst is a captivating novel set on two continents--India and Europe--during World War Two. Against this backdrop of momentous upheaval and world-changing events, Shree Ghatage weaves a rich, intimate story about the many forms desire may take, especially for the young Indian couple at its heart: Vasanti, a lively and enchanting woman who has grown up sheltered from the world by her well-meaning father; and Baba, the wealthy, accomplished scion of a prominent Brahmin family. Thrown together into a marriage that neither has wished for, these two conflicted souls slowly learn to tolerate, grow fond of, and finally, passionately love each other.

As Ghatage, the award-winning author of Brahma's Dream, expertly unwinds her tale, she moves between the lushness of India and the sombre grey of London during the Blitz, gradually allowing the outside world to encroach upon the lovers and forcing us to reexamine our assumptions about them. In a shocking conclusion, Ghatage brilliantly reveals how the unruly forces of love and desire-and thirst of all kinds-can combine in large and small ways to utterly change a family's destiny.

SHREE GHATAGE is the author of the short story collection Awake When All the World is Asleep, which won the Thomas H. Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award and was shortlisted for several other awards, and the novel Brahma's Dream, a Kiriyama Notable Book. Ghatage and her family came to Canada in the early 1980s, spent several years in the Maritimes, and now live in Calgary, Alberta.