Deviants

Author Santanu Bhattacharya
Narrator Mikhail Sen, Chirag Lobo, Santanu Bhattacharya
Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
Publish Date 13 February 2025
Run Time 8 hours and 57 minutes
Format Audio
Genre Family life fiction, Modern and contemporary fiction, Narrative theme: Identity / belonging, Narrative theme: Love and relationships, Narrative theme: Social issues.

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

FROM THE CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED AUTHOR OF ONE SMALL VOICE: a bold, electrifying story of a family in which three generations of gay men in India fight for love and dignity against the currents of their times

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.

'Compulsive and wrenching ... 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

'Bhattacharya's storytelling talents are limitless' Nikesh Shukla, praise for One Small Voice

A joy to read, a full universe of feeling ... A born storyteller' Max Porter, praise for One Small Voice

© Santanu Bhattacharya 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025

Critics Review

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

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

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 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

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

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

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