Deviants

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