- Published: 13 February 2025
- ISBN: 9780241707234
- Imprint: Fig Tree
- Format: Hardback
- Pages: 304
- RRP: $45.00
Deviants

















- Published: 13 February 2025
- ISBN: 9780241707234
- Imprint: Fig Tree
- Format: Hardback
- Pages: 304
- RRP: $45.00
One of the best debuts this year
Guardian, praise for One Small Voice
Written with verve, intelligence and compassion
Irish Times, praise for One Small Voice
Intoxicating ... Terrific
Daily Mail, praise for One Small Voice
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 joy to read, a full universe of feeling ... A born storyteller
Max Porter, praise for One Small Voice
Bhattacharya's storytelling talents are limitless
Nikesh Shukla, praise for One Small Voice
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
Kasim Ali, praise for One Small Voice
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
Sarvat Hasin, author of The Giant Dark
There is an epic confidence to Bhattacharya’s writing
Samira Ahmed
It’s magnificent: funny, melancholic, sharply true. The force of it crept up on me in a brilliantly subtle way
James Cahill, author of Tiepolo Blue
Deviants is a beautifully written and formally inventive multi-generational tale of gay life in one Indian family
Ben Fergusson, author of Tales from the Fatherland
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
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.
Service 95
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
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
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
Guardian
Deviants is an epic novel wrought into just 300 pages, at once heart-wrenching and utterly unputdownable
Anna Bonet, The i Paper
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
Financial Times