You’re invited to The Wedding, an electrifying novel about the joining of two South Asian families, and the secrets, resentments, and unspoken truths boiling just beneath the surface.

Interweaving themes of identity, culture clashes, and the immigrant experience as found in The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri with the exuberance and sharp humour of Kevin Kwan’s Crazy Rich Asians, Gurjinder Basran delivers a wide-ranging but intimate portrait of a vibrant, complex Sikh community.

Set in Vancouver and Surrey, BC, The Wedding exposes the inner lives of the wedding party, guests and event staff in the lead-up to a lavish wedding. This novel, centered around the impending marriage of Devi and Baby, illustrates the union of two people, two families and all the ways in which an entire community bears witness, ensnares and uplifts itself.

Like all great Bollywood films, The Wedding is rife with family drama, steeped in tradition and an ode to love in all its forms. With humour, nuance and honesty, The Wedding spills the chai—exploring desire and expectation, suffering and judgment, class and race—all in search of a happy enough ever after.

Gurjinder Basran is the award-winning author of three novels: Everything Was Goodbye (Penguin Canada), winner of the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize and a Chatelaine Magazine Book Club pick; Someone You Love Is Gone (Penguin Canada and Harper Perennial); and Help! I’m Alive! (ECW Press). A Simon Fraser University, Writer’s Studio alumna hailed by the CBC as one of “Ten Canadian women writers you need to read,” Basran balances the demands of her creative life with her “other” career in the tech sector. She is currently the Director of Learning, Development and Communications at Bell Canada. She lives in Delta, BC with her family.

Gurjinder Basran's profile page

“The Wedding feels like drinking a comforting cup of masala chai—not the pretentious ‘chai tea latte’ stuff: the real Indian stuff, with its nuanced notes of ginger and cardamom. Equal parts layered and entertaining, this breezy read takes you up close to one big, tight-knit Sikh community in Surrey, BC. Chapter by chapter, it ropes you into a theatrical and complex family dynamic. Free of the clichés and cultural voyeurism that often plague South Asian diaspora tales, Gurjinder Basran’s fiction serves up the many flavours of the Indo-Canadian experience without dilution. You just have to RSVP to get a taste.”

Mihika Agarwal, Cannonbury Editorial Fellow, <i>The Walrus</i>

“The Wedding invites readers behind the scenes of your not-so-typical Indian wedding: sometimes delightful, sometimes salacious and always fraught with familial intrigue. A richly textured, wonderfully imagined novel, The Wedding evokes an entire Vancouver community as its protagonist, a cast of characters so real they leap off the page, and whose lives, loves, and heartbreaks are entwined with one another for better or worse. Gurjinder Basran offers an astute insight into the human psyche and an intimate look at the intricacies of love and family. This, and her beautiful, whip-smart prose make this a highly engrossing and un-put-down-able read. I loved every minute of it.”

Ayelet Tsabari, author of <i>Songs for the Brokenhearted</i>