Ammar Kalia - A Person Is A Prayer

A Person is a Prayer is Ammar Kalia's debut novel and was shortlisted for the Unbound Firsts Prize in 2022. An intensely moving, lyrical and often funny novel about a family whose story of migration from Kenya and India to England is told over three separate days, across six decades.

Bedi and Sushma's marriage is arranged. When they first meet, they stumble through a faltering conversation about happiness and hope and agree to go in search of these things together. But even after their children Selena, Tara and Rohan are grown up and have their own families, Bedi and Sushma are still searching.

Years later, the siblings attempt to navigate life without their parents. As they travel to the Ganges to unite their father’s ashes with the opaque water, it becomes clear that each of them has inherited the same desire to understand what makes a life happy, the same confusion about this question and the same enduring hope.

A Person is a Prayer plumbs the depths of the spaces between family members and the silence that rushes in like a flood when communication deteriorates. It is about how short a life is and how the choices we make can ripple down generations. Perfect for fans of Ali Smith, Jhumpa Lahiri and Monica Ali.

Ammar Kalia is a writer, musician and journalist living in London. Since 2019, he has been the Guardian's Global Music Critic and he has written for publications including the Observer, BBC, Dazed, Mixmag, Economist, Downbeat and Crack Magazine. In 2020 he published a collection of poetry and an accompanying album, Kintsugi: Jazz Poems for Musicians Alive And Dead, and in 2022 his essay on music and identity was included in the collection Haramacy.

'Crisp narration and lyricism... Kalia's take is refreshingly nuanced and - thank God - funny' - Esquire (The Biggest Books Landing on Your Reading List in 2024)

'Soulful, funny and daring... A Person is a Prayer is a plaintive and refreshing take on a cross-generational saga... From the bursting white rapids of the Ganges, to the nail-rapping table tops of a Hounslow kitchen, Kalia proves himself a transportive and stylish novelist, sensitive to the precious, emotional tissues that bind a family unit, and just how easily these can disintegrate when put under inspection' - Vogue (Best Books of 2024)

'Equal parts funny and touching... A multigenerational story reflecting on the transient connections between generations across time and place, and the nature of home and memory' - GQ (Best Books of 2024)

'Kalia's debut is a moving and often very funny portrait of a family in transit - both physically and emotionally' - Dazed (10 exciting books to look out for in 2024)

'A moving family drama that explores migration, inheritance and loss' - i-D (Fiction to be excited for in 2024)

‘This rich debut... has poignancy and focus. Telling the story over the course of three single days spanning six decades, [Kalia] interrogates the fundamental question of what makes a life happy through characters all striving for a better future’ - Observer

'A Person is a Prayer has a prismatic quality... It's a rich read, freighted with the weight of expectation, where overlapping perspectives illuminate new corners of contemporary British life' - Emma Warren, author of Dance Your Way Home