Indian American author Abraham Verghese's latest novel "The Covenant of Water," a sweeping tale of three generations living on the Malabar coast of South India, has created ripples across the literary world.
Oprah Winfrey, an influential U.S. talk show host and book club organizer, described the novel -- which tells the story of a family bound by a strange affliction that causes someone in each generation to die from drowning -- as "one of the best books" she had read in her life.
