One Small Voice

SHORTLISTED FOR THE AUTHORS' CLUB BEST FIRST NOVEL AWARD 
SHORTLISTED FOR THE GORDON BOWKER VOLCANO PRIZE 
AN OBSERVER BEST DEBUT OF THE YEAR 
 
'One of the best debuts this year' Guardian 
 
'An intoxicating portrait of modern India ... Terrific' Daily Mail 
 
'Hugely engaging, written with verve, intelligence and compassion' Irish Times 
____________________________________________ 
 
India, 1992. The country is ablaze with riots. In Lucknow, ten-year-old Shubhankar witnesses a terrible act of mob violence that will alter the course of his life: one to which his family turn a blind eye. 
 
As he approaches adulthood, Shabby focuses on the only path he believes will buy him an escape - good school, good degree, good job, good car. But when he arrives in Mumbai in his twenties, he begins to question whether there might be other roads he could choose. His new friends, Syed and Shruti, are asking the same questions : together, buoyed by the freedom of the big city, they are rewriting their stories. 
 
But as the rising tide of nationalism sweeps across the country, and their friendship becomes the rock they all cling to, this new life suddenly seems fragile. And before Shabby can chart his way forward, he must reckon with the ghosts of his past . . . 
 
____________________________________________ 
 
'A joy to read, a full universe of feeling, an effortless page-turner by a born storyteller' Max Porter, author of Grief is the Thing with Feathers 
 
'Devastating and intimate, and political and radical all at the same time. Bhattacharya's storytelling talents are limitless' Nikesh Shukla 
 
'A wonderful, timely contribution to world literature' Tsitsi Dangarembga, author of This Mournable Body

Epic in scope and yet composed of intimate moments ... One Small Voice will be one of the best debuts this year

[A] diverse, original take on contemporary India ... [A] hugely engaging novel written with verve, intelligence and compassion

Observer, Meet the 10 Best Debut Novelists for 2023

An intoxicating portrait of modern India, riven with internal political and cultural tensions, caught precariously between its colonial past and its ruthlessly modernising future ... Terrific

Epic ... Guided by an intimate trajectory... Bhattacharya is a vivid and humane storyteller with a talent for encapsulating the social in the personal

A joy to read, a full universe of feeling, an effortless page-turner by a born storyteller

Devastating and intimate, and political and radical all at the same time. Bhattacharya's storytelling talents are limitless

A compassionate, many-layered chronicle of trauma and recovery following mob violence in contemporary India, One Small Voice is a wonderful, timely contribution to world literature

Tsitsi Dangarembga, author of This Mournable Body

Exceptional ... Bhattacharya gives us India in all its messy glory ... Heartbreaking and yet so full of hope

Bhattacharya has the enviable ability of creating a cast of characters that feel as real as any person I've met. His effortless writing sings on the page

Whilst the plot turns on our capacity for cruelty, Bhattacharya's book brims with compassion. A novel about the complexities of adulthood, and the shame we all carry, that is both fearless and kind

Thrilling ... Bhattacharya writes beautifully about friendship, family and the devastating consequences of secrecy and shame in a narrative that powerfully evokes the complexities of coming of age in modern India

Ben Fergusson, author of Tales from the Fatherland

Emotional and bold ... A rare voice that rewards us with hope and recognition

Santanu Bhattacharya grew up in India, and studied at the University of Oxford and the National University of Singapore. He won the Desmond Elliott Prize Residency in 2023, and the Mo Siewcharran and Life Writing Prizes in 2021. His first novel, One Small Voice, was an Observer best debut novel of 2023, and was shortlisted for the Authors' Club Best First Novel Award and the Society of Authors’ Gordon Bowker Volcano Prize. He now lives in London.

India, 1992. The country is ablaze with riots. In Lucknow, ten-year-old Shubhankar witnesses a terrible act of mob violence that will alter the course of his life: one to which his family turn a blind eye. 
 
As he approaches adulthood, Shabby focuses on the only path he believes will buy him an escape - good school, good degree, good job, good car. But when he arrives in Mumbai in his twenties, he begins to question whether there might be other roads he could choose. His new friends, Syed and Shruti, are asking the same questions : together, buoyed by the freedom of the big city, they are rewriting their stories. 
 
But as the rising tide of nationalism sweeps across the country, and their friendship becomes the rock they all cling to, this new life suddenly seems fragile. And before Shabby can chart his way forward, he must reckon with the ghosts of his past . . .

Santanu Bhattacharya

Bhattacharya has written a compelling, concise epic, where politics, love and freedom are balanced and blended into a novel that is unflinching about the cruelties of the past, optimistic about what comes next, but wise enough to know that progress comes with costs, too

Deviants is an epic novel wrought into just 300 pages, at once heart-wrenching and utterly unputdownable

A compelling study of gay life and the search to belong in an unforgiving society ... As much as it’s about forbidden love, Deviants is a study of resilience. Bhattacharya has created a compelling, astute and compassionate meditation on identity and the search to belong

It’s magnificent: funny, melancholic, sharply true. The force of it crept up on me in a brilliantly subtle way

Deviants is so compulsive and wrenching it made me miss my tube stop more than once. Rarely have I felt so invested in a novel: I carried each strand with me into my life, their joy, grief and hope. The detail and care that goes into these stories makes them burn in you long after the pages are closed. Bhattacharya has written the epic text for the South Asian queer community that the characters in this book long to find

There is an epic confidence to Bhattacharya’s writing

Deviants is a beautifully written and formally inventive multi-generational tale of gay life in one Indian family

A fearless portrait of a changing society, bringing hitherto marginalised lives centre stage with great heart and humour … At times heartrending, but also life-affirming and celebratory

Allan Radcliffe, author of The Old Haunts

A vibrant, engaging and important novel. Santanu Bhattacharya explores gay love in India across three generations of a family with remarkable elegance and compassion. By turns funny, illuminating and moving, Deviants is a fine achievement

Stephen Buoro, author of The Five Sorrowful Mysteries of Andy Africa

Fluent, fascinating and groundbreaking ... Bhattacharya is a skilful writer, who effortlessly weaves together the different strands of his story, giving us intimate portraits of all three men - their lives, their loves and their families - alongside a vivid evocation of a rapidly changing India, from the 1970s to the present day. A rich, multifaceted story that is both funny and heartbreaking, clear-eyed and hopeful

Joanna Quinn, author of The Whalebone Theatre

Deviants is a brilliantly compelling novel. Emotionally powerful and not shy in terms of explicit content, it dives right inside the lives of three generations of queer Indians. Like Mambro, I’m thankful the language now exists to tell their stories and that Bhattacharya is the one admirably wielding the pen

Priscilla Morris, author of Black Butterflies

One of the first queer novels by a South Asian writer, and Santanu's most personal yet.

Bhattacharya's storytelling talents are limitless

Nikesh Shukla, praise for One Small Voice

Written with verve, intelligence and compassion

A joy to read, a full universe of feeling ... A born storyteller

Bhattacharya is a vivid and humane storyteller with a talent for encapsulating the social in the personal

Sydney Morning Herald, praise for One Small Voice

A vivid portrait of gay Indian men across three generations ... You can feel the love and the gift the writer wants to give to these characters, to queer Asian men, in writing their lives so fully

Heather Marks, producer, artist, and curator, Conversations with Baldwin

Follows the lives of three generations of gay men in India, struggling against taboos, criminalisation and social expectations

Guardian – Brilliant books to read in 2025

Vivaan, a teenager in India’s silicon plateau, has discovered love on his smartphone. Intoxicating, boundary-breaking love. His parents know he is gay, and their support is something Vivaan can count on, but they don’t know what exactly their son gets up to in the online world. 
 
For his uncle, born thirty years earlier, things were very different. Mambro’s life changed forever when he fell for a male classmate at a time, and in a country, where the persecution of gay people was rife under a colonial-era law criminalising homosexuality. 
 
And before that was Mambro’s uncle Sukumar, a young man hopelessly in love with another young man, but forced by social taboos to keep their relationship a secret at all costs. Sukumar would never live the life he yearned for, but his story would ignite and inspire his nephew and grand-nephew after him. 
 
Bold and bracing, intimate and heartbreaking, Deviants examines the histories we inherit and the legacies we leave behind.

Santanu Bhattacharya

Praise for Deviants

Bhattacharya has written a compelling, concise epic, where politics, love and freedom are balanced and blended into a novel that is unflinching about the cruelties of the past, optimistic about what comes next, but ...

Deviants is an epic novel wrought into just 300 pages, at once heart-wrenching and utterly unputdownable

A compelling study of gay life and the search to belong in an unforgiving society ... As much as it’s about forbidden love, Deviants is a study of resilience. Bhattacharya has created a compelling, astute and ...

Bhattacharya has written a compelling, concise epic, where politics, love and freedom are balanced and blended into a novel that is unflinching about the cruelties of the past, optimistic about what comes next, but ...

Deviants is an epic novel wrought into just 300 pages, at once heart-wrenching and utterly unputdownable

A compelling study of gay life and the search to belong in an unforgiving society ... As much as it’s about forbidden love, Deviants is a study of resilience. Bhattacharya has created a compelling, astute and ...

Bhattacharya has written a compelling, concise epic, where politics, love and freedom are balanced and blended into a novel that is unflinching about the cruelties of the past, optimistic about what comes next, but ...

Deviants is an epic novel wrought into just 300 pages, at once heart-wrenching and utterly unputdownable

A compelling study of gay life and the search to belong in an unforgiving society ... As much as it’s about forbidden love, Deviants is a study of resilience. Bhattacharya has created a compelling, astute and ...

Books by Santanu Bhattacharya

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