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The River Has Roots
Summary
The River Has Roots, by Amal El-Mohtar, is a short novella that reads like an old fairy tale. In a small town split by a magic river, the water marks the border between the human world and the land of the fae. The rules are different on the other side, and crossing carelessly costs a lot.
Two sisters guard that border in the loveliest way possible: by singing. Their family has sung to the river for generations, and the music keeps everything in balance. The sisters are close, each one completing the other, and life feels solid as stone.
Then one of them falls in love. The romance comes at the wrong time, with the wrong person in someone's eyes, and the calm breaks apart. The river feels the change, and the bond between the sisters is tested like never before.
El-Mohtar writes with the rhythm of a ballad, full of songs and water imagery, and fits into a slim book a story about sisterly love and the price of choices.
Awards and nominees
- Hugo Awards 2026 · Best Novella
Beat: Automatic Noodle, Cinder House, Murder by Memory, The Summer War, What Stalks the Deep
Trivia
- Amal El-Mohtar already had a Novella Hugo: she won in 2020 with This Is How You Lose the Time War, co-written with Max Gladstone.
- That same year, her co-author Max Gladstone was also a finalist, in Best Series, with The Craft Wars.
About the author
Amal El-Mohtar2026 Hugo Award winner for Best NovellaAmal El-Mohtar is a Canadian poet, short story writer and critic of Lebanese descent. She broke through worldwide with This Is How You Lose the Time War, co-written with Max Gladstone, and won the Hugo again in 2026 with The River Has Roots, her first solo novella. She also writes the science fiction and fantasy column for The New York Times Book Review.
Full biography →Sources: kirkusreviews.com · lacon.org
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