The Water Takes

‘The Water Takes is an intimate epic; both a dazzling paean to hope and a staggering monument to loss. While Walker’s prose pulls tighter than a garotte wire, her characters are drawn with unspeakable tenderness. She has gifted us a uniquely Australian odyssey that trawls the deep wells of our collective anxieties and turns them into something heartfelt, horrifying, and wholly original.’ – Jordan Prosser
‘The Water Takes is a beautifully written blend of looming menace and sharp humour, along with a tender and timely reminder that connection is what saves us when catastrophe hits. This is dystopian fiction that feels as real, as human, as anything I’ve read. A dizzyingly good debut.’ – Jacqueline Bublitz
‘Atmospheric and utterly harrowing, Walker has written a disquieting account of grief and fortitude in a drowning world. This book devastated me.’ – Emily O’Grady
‘The Water Takes announces a new and exciting voice in Australian fiction. This beguiling, bedevilling novel about sinkholes and small towns had me gripped from the first page. Both a page-turning odyssey of survival and a heartfelt story of care and connection, The Water Takes is a novel we’ll be talking about for years.’ – Dominic Amerena
‘What do you do when the world starts drowning? The Water Takes is haunting, terrifying and still somehow hopeful. Seventy-something Pam is one of the most vivid characters I’ve ever encountered – she made me laugh and roar and weep. I am in awe of Sarah Walker and this book.’ – Kate Mildenhall

Sarah Walker is a Naarm/Melbourne-based writer and artist. She writes about anxiety, intimacy, and absurdity in both fiction and non-fiction. She has a particular interest in the body and the ways in which it escapes our control, as well as how apprehension of disaster impacts our sense of the present.

Her first book, The First Time I Thought I Was Dying, a collection of non-fiction essays about the unruly body in late capitalism, won the 2021 Quentin Bryce Award. In 2025, she was awarded the Kill Your Darlings Creative Nonfiction Essay Prize.

Sarah is also an award-winning photographer and fine artist, whose work has been commissioned across multiple countries.

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