Latitudes of Longing

Shortlisted for the JCB Prize for Literature 2018. Winner of the Tata Literature Live! First Book Award (Fiction) 2018. ‘Intense, lyrical, and powerful … This is a remarkable debut.’ – Jeet Thayil An astounding exploration of intense longings, Shubhangi Swarup’s novel begins in the depths of the Andaman Sea, and follows geological and emotional faultlines through the Irrawaddy delta and the tourist-trap of Thamel, to end amidst the highest glaciers and passes of the Karakorams. The story sweeps through worlds and times that are inhabited by: a scientist who studies trees and a clairvoyant who talks to them; Lord Goodenough who travels around the furthest reaches of the Raj, giving names to nameless places; a geologist working towards ending futile wars over a glacier; octogenarian lovers; a superstitious dictator and a mother struggling to get her revolutionary son released; a yeti who seeks human companionship; a turtle who turns first into a boat and then a woman; and the ghost of an evaporated ocean as restless as the continents. Binding them all together is a vision of life as vast as the universe itself. Richly imaginative and irresistible in its storytelling, Latitudes of Longing announces the arrival of an incredible new literary talent.