Like most of the central figures in the Covenant of Water, Abraham Verghese comes from a long line of Keralan St. Thomas Christians, although he was not born in the coastal Indian state he captures so gorgeously in the novel but in landlocked Ethiopia. His parents, both college graduates with master’s degrees in physics, met in Addis Ababa, where they had immigrated to pursue teaching careers. Verghese was midway through his medical training when civil war broke out in Ethiopia. Emperor Haile Selassie was deposed, the medical school shuttered, and the military took over. Verghese fled to Westfield, New Jersey, where he worked as a hospital orderly before returning to his ancestral home of India to complete his medical degree.
Watch Abraham Verghese’s story here:
As he describes in the video, Verghese was drawn to specializing in infectious disease “because it was all about cure.” In a painful twist of irony, he began his residency just as an incurable virus began ravaging the world: HIV. By being at the beside of so many people suffering from an “ultimately fatal illness,” he learned that “when you could not cure, you could heal.” This understanding shaped not only his practice of medicine but his evolution into a writer.
In addition to taking viewers along on Verghese’s intimate journey from an infectious disease expert in rural Tennessee to an internationally bestselling author, this video reveals how and why Verghese wrote The Covenant of Water, a book Oprah describes as an “epic, transportive story” (and one of the best books she has ever read). Get an inside look at the personal influences and creative process that led to this modern masterpiece. Whether you’re a healer, a storyteller, a reader, a patient, an immigrant, a caregiver—or all of the above!—Verghese’s story is guaranteed to inspire.
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Charley is a Books Editor at Oprah Daily where she writes about authors, writing, and reading. She is also a freelance writer and audio journalist whose work has been featured in the Atlantic, the Los Angeles Review, Agni, and on the Apple News Today podcast. She is currently completing an MFA in creative nonfiction at NYU and working on an essay collection about the intersection of grief, landscape, and urban design.
