Brotherless Night: 'Blazingly brilliant' CELESTE NG

Product Information

Brotherless Night tells the story of Sashi, a medical student, and her family, including four brothers, who are caught up in the unrest, violence, and ultimately, war in Sri Lanka in the 1980s. Riveting, heartbreaking and extraordinary for both its empathetic gaze and its clear-eyed depiction of the brutality of war, Brotherless Night is a masterpiece.

But over the next decade, as a vicious civil war subsumes Sri Lanka, her dream takes her on a different path as she watches those around her, including her four beloved brothers and their best friend, get swept up in violent political ideologies and their consequences. The reader watches as Sashi questions the means (brutality and murder) used by the Tamil Tigers, yet understands why her brothers have joined the group. Quote from a revered teacher: "Open your books, read while you can, and remember: there are people in our country who would burn what we love and laugh at the flames.Her voice is one, that you will never forget, and as the reader you are forced again and again to ask yourself - What would you do? The relationship between the two, which begins with a searingly memorable encounter and develops into something neither fully platonic nor romantic, anchors many of the ugliest years of Sashi’s life, as war breaks out in her hometown. What follows is a history of the first ten years of the Sri Lankan Civil War told through the lens of one Tamil woman caught in the middle.

She is a typical teenager studying for her exams in hopes of getting into medical school when she first witnesses signs of unrest. The story begins just before the Sri Lankan civil war starts as the discrimination against Tamils is growing culminating in the "Black July" pogroms against the Tamils in the summer of 1983.The story is told in the first person by Sashi, which in my opinion, was an excllent decision by the author as, as far as it is possible, it felt like I was experiencing things along with her. This is a book that feels like a whole world, filled with vital questions and the kind of wrenching heartbreak that stays with you long after the book has closed. Life in an underground bunker: "When we ran to the bunkers we tried to remember to carry our torches so that we could check for snakes.

Sashi needs to navigate a world where at first right and wrong become unclear, and later where right and wrong cease to matter.Brotherless Night is my favorite kind of novel, one so rich and full of movement that it’s only later I realize how much I have learned. The story is told by Sashi, who at 16 lives with her mum, dad, and 4 brothers in a village in Jaffna. In this novel, I was transported deep into the experiences of civilians who are inspired to action, either to defend their people or to serve all people.

The Sri Lankan Civil War has been covered time and time again in contemporary literature, but it is Ganeshananthan's warm prose that ambles the reader alongside Sashi and her journey. In the ensuing years, even as almost everything and everyone she knows is either taken from her or rendered unrecognizable, Sashi refuses to let her own life fall apart.

Her work has appeared in Granta, The New York Times, and The Best American Nonrequired Reading, among other publications.