South Haven : A Novel - Softcover

"[T]his luminous debut...captures precisely the heartache of growing up." --Library Journal, Top Spring Indie Fiction

"A powerful story...a universal look at the complexity of how people wrestle with guilt and blame amid tragic loss." --New Haven Independent

"[A] sensitive, poignant, resonating novel." --Bookslut

Included in John Reed's list of Most Anticipated Small Press Books of 2016 at Big Other

"A son of Hindu immigrants from India grows up in a New England suburb, where he struggles to find his way after his mother dies, while his father becomes immersed in anti-Muslim fundamentalism." --World Wide Work

"This book became insight into what the life of a South Asian family is like in suburbia here in the US. But it remained a sharp, sensitive comment on adolescence and how much we still struggle to do well by our youth. Sawhney leaves us with a good cliffhanger in the end which I admired. He didn't have to tell us how each character turned out in life but lets us imagine their further existence." --WORD Bookstores, Staff pick

"This story was absolutely beautifully written. I found myself unable to stop turning page after page as I immersed myself in this book fully. It is a gripping story from start to finish, as you read hoping that this family will finally come to terms with their loss. A definite 10 stars out of 5 star read." --The Reading Wolf

"A novelist you will be reading for years to come." --Amy Bloom, author of Lucky Us

"South Haven is an affecting tale of a family's loss, a child's grief, and the search for solace in all the wrong places. Hirsh Sawhney is an incandescent voice in fiction." --Laila Lalami, author of The Moor's Account

"It's no secret that grief makes us vulnerable, but Hirsh Sawhney's perceptively rendered South Havenpresents a volatile mix of second-generation migration, sadness, and cruelty in suburban America.South Haven is bold, accessible, funny, and heartbreaking." --Jayne Anne Phillips, author of Quiet Dell

"In his debut novel, Hirsh Sawhney offers a vivid portrait of second-generation immigrants living in suburban New England. (The setting of South Haven is fictitious.) Particularly memorable are Siddharth's concerted attempts to embrace the American way of life and fit in, to the extent of denying his own heritage... A very poignant coming-of-age tale." --The TLS

Hirsh Sawhney's writing has appeared in the "New York Times Book Review," the "Guardian," the "Times Literary Supplement," the "Financial Times," "Outlook," and numerous other periodicals. He is the editor of "Delhi Noir," a critically acclaimed anthology of original fiction, and is on the advisory board of "Wasafiri," a London-based journal of international literature. He lives in New Haven, Connecticut, and teaches at Wesleyan University. "South Haven" is his debut novel.