Lonely, middle-aged, at a personal and professional dead-end, Iti Arya flees the towers and bright lights of Gurgaon for The Dacha, a remote cottage in the Kumaon Himalayas where she had spent perhaps the happiest years of her childhood. Over the course of that single monsoon in the hills, in the company of two grandmothers—ninety-something Badi Amma and Rosinka Paul Singh, aged one hundred and two—and a mysterious girl who may be her sister, Iti will make peace with her approximate life and quiet desolation. She will witness the vanity of youth, but also its vulnerability and tenderness; the indignities of age, and also its courage and consolations. She will submit to life and the eternal spirit of the mountains.

With Never Never Land, Namita Gokhale shows, again, why she is one of India’s most original and daring writers, with an extraordinary understanding of the human condition.

Namita Gokhale is a writer and festival director. Her work spans various genres, including novels, short stories, Himalayan studies, mythology and books for young readers. She is the author of twenty-three works of fiction and non-fiction, including the novels Paro: Dreams of Passion, Shakuntala, Jaipur Journals, Things to Leave Behind and The Blind Matriarch; and the edited anthologies Mystics and Sceptics: In Search of Himalayan Masters, Himalaya: Adventures, Meditations, Life (with Ruskin Bond), and (with Malashri Lal) In Search of Sita, Finding Radha and Treasures of Lakshmi. Gokhale is the recipient of several awards, including the Sahitya Akademi Award (2021). She is the co-founder and co-director (with William Dalrymple) of the famed Jaipur Literature Festival.