This novel has made the long/short lists for a number of awards and has since won at least one of them that I know of (Women's Prize for Fiction). And in all cases, the recognition is *extremely* well-deserved. This was very much a masterpiece of literature and humanity. 

 

Jaffna, Sri Lanka, 1981. Sashi wants to be a doctor, spending all her time and energy on working through school in pursuit of that goal. But over the decade that follows, as a civil war upends her world, this dream will take a circuitous route towards completion. Sashi watches (fighting all the while) as she loses each of her four brothers, in addition to her close friend K, to violence, the "movement," or in opposition to her own choices. She continues in her studies, with breaks for protests and other civil demonstrations, time watching over her friend K as he makes an impossible statement, working as a medic in a field hospital for the Tamil Tigers (the militant group that emerges as the leader in the fight against the state discrimination/violence against the Tamil minority), sheltering from bombs/fighting, and surviving a variety of other attacks, forced removal, "legal" impositions, and food/supply restrictions. Through it all, Sashi struggles to come to terms with the atrocities against herself, and her people, from all sides...when the Sri Lankan government allows you no rights, Tamil leaders murder/disappear any dissidents, and the peacekeepers do nothing but add to the level of violence against women/civilians, whose "side" can you justify taking? What options are there to protect/save your loved ones and everyone just trying to live their lives? When one of Sashi's professors invites her to join in a project documenting all the human rights violations, from all sources, Sashi makes the dangerous choice to join her. 

 

This book was SO good. I *love* a book that shows how circumstances of consistent inequality create their own militant opposition ("terrorists"), but like human nature is to fight for yourself and who could truly say that desperation and tragedy wouldn’t push you to at least consider the same? (Answer: No one.) This is applicable, deeply unfortunately, across so many peoples and places historically to the present day. So it is always a lesson worth learning/re-visiting. (Read alike suggestion: Against the Loveless World.) 

 

Ganeshananthan brings the Sri Lanka of the 1980s to life through Sashi's narration. This type of "present day narrator storytelling the past" style is not my favorite, but the way it's done here, with clear points/explanations being made about how ordinary people, when faced with impossible choices, do what they must to survive and make a space for themselves to do more than that (because don't we all deserve opportunity to prosper?), was well-used. Witnessing the endless loop of government detainments and rights-removal and dehumanization leading to the need for rebellion/Movement/nationalist parties, and the ease of recruitment as the government continues to discriminate and indiscriminately impose ‘rules,’ and opposition grows more desperate/stronger...it's a heartbreaking cycle. And it gets even worse, as the way spreading fear causes people to silence themselves…giving ever more power to the group causing that fear in the first place. And on top of all of those larger picture things, there's also the people themselves, the individuality of experiences under the universality of these circumstances. Seeing the way political opinion and loyalty is splitting families (in particular, in this case, Sashi's family), as they are all responding to the same horrors and violence and systemic discrimination around them - just in different ways because, as always, we are all different people - and that forced response is then causing further internal/familial fracturing and loss is all so tragic and unnecessary. Tangential to this aspect, I also really enjoyed the exploration of the confluence of feminism and revolution (the promises and false promises of it), in general and within the Tamil setting. 

 

And even more than that, Sashi's own complex struggles stand out. Because those closest to her have made it clear that they are capable of doing terrible things in “support” of a belief or movement, while still doing the small, thoughtful things for family...what contradictory realities to have to compromise internally (and how doing that can tear a person apart and how it’s so much easier to not ask/pretend not to know). And because she wants to help people of course, she's studying to be a doctor, even if not all of those people have made "good" decisions...and how can you assign a loyalty to saving a life? It all builds, gorgeously across the development of the story and her character, to her choice to become a collector of stories, those of civilians, the regular people, the what is really happening and not the officially sanctioned version of any particular side, the stories that it hurts to listen to/witness (but that's what makes the work so important). It is a higher calling, a destiny, an effort that is precious and impossible. Which is why I said that this narrative voice, Sashi herself telling the reader how things got to where they ended up, is the perfect style, implemented exactly right. Sashi bears witness all throughout on her own, in her own life/actions, and later as a collector/writer for others to be able to do the same through her words. 

 

I want to revisit the way Ganeshananthan explores the concept and label of terrorist. She leans into the complexities of what makes a "terrorist," who defines that and what conditions lead to a situation in which terrorism is created and flourishes, the way that the fight for beliefs/freedoms/rights can turn people into criminals and murderers just as horrible as those they claim to be fighting free of (while their original cause remains a legitimate one). She interrogates the concept that there is a level of "acceptable" human collateral damage for a cause or to justify an ends or a decision or a lack of intervention. She asks how often must this cycle of human loss repeat itself? She juxtaposes the choices of giving up family/study in order to fight for a future where you could be with them/do that work (though they may not be there or you may not have the knowledge then) versus staying the course with family/study (but how, if someone doesn’t fight for a future, will you ever be able to be or do that freely?). And she gives myriad examples of the potential interpretations and judgements and responses and disagreements people might have to these situations.  

 

Throughout reading, I found it impossible to not think of how many other times this same story has played out. How often we pithily say 'never again,' yet do nothing when "again" keeps happening (especially in speaking to a top-down ‘power to actually do something’ hierarchy here - looking at the UN and major leading countries). How these exact, EXACT (like, I did more research after finshing the novel: it’s literally the same playbook of unanimously agreed upon genocide, but easier to look back and sigh and sorrow, than to fight in real time to change things apparently) things are playing out in front of the worlds' eyes as we speak with no evidence that we’ve learned from these past unimaginable tragedies at all. All that to say: free Palestine (and the Congo, and Sudan, and every other group experiencing these types of oppression). 

 

I'd like to recognize, here at the end, a non-conflict highlight of this novel as well. Ganeshananthan not only brings to life the tragedy of the Sri Lankan civil war, but also the traditions and food religion(s) and peoples and educational system and uniquities of culture in Sri Lanka at large, and the Tamil minority specifically. Really, that part was lovely. 

 

So yea, I had so many reactions while reading this, so many thoughts, and made so many notes. If you made it this far, thanks for sticking with me through them all. This novel brought it, in exploring the impossibility and heartbreak of decisions that “regular” civilians must make in order to survive, their own opinions/beliefs notwithstanding. And it's an ode to bearing witness, the importance of that, even (especially?) when one has to choose to risk everything else to accomplish it. I literally could not recommend this book more highly.  

 

 

“You have to see the world yourself - don't let others tell you what it looks like.” 

 

“At least that is how I imagine it, as I have imagined so much violence in the years since I have inside it. Am I imagining or am I remembering? I no longer know.” 

 

“Imagine the places you grew up, the places you studied, places that belonged to your people, burned. But I should stop pretending that I know you. Perhaps you do not have to imagine. Perhaps your library, too, went up in smoke.” 

 

"You must understand: there is no single day on which a war begins. The conflict will collect around you gradually, the way carrion birds assemble around the vulnerable, until there are so many predators that the object of their hunger is not even visible. You will not even be able to see yourself in the gathering crowd of those who would kill you." 

 

“How seamlessly we had moved into the space of censoring ourselves around those we loved the most.” 

 

“The idea was that Sri Lankan Tamils were a nation with a homeland, and had a right to self-determination, and that every Tamil had the right to citizenship, along with other basic rights. But the government agreed with only the final part of that formulation.” (I mean no wonder everyone felt that fighting was the only solution left.) 

 

“It won’t unhappen just because you don’t say it...” (damn) 

 

“Evil is not limited by what you personally can imagine.” 

 

“The thread of the past connecting us. Not the history of countries, but the history of home.” 

 

“Before there was a movement, there were six children on a lane…” 

 

“Have you ever been haunted by propaganda? It can be a kind of ghost.” 

 

“Doctors resolve to relieve pain, but pain is information, and to lose it can mean losing something valuable. Pain draws a map. And if your body hurts, then your mind is occupied and cannot think too deeply about what has happened to you.” 

 

“I want you to understand: this is not an excuse, or an explanation. It is a fact.” - what a description for how people act when forced or when there’s no other way or when desperation is all that’s left 

 

“…I had such long practice in being the figure at the edge of the picture.” 

 

“It’s good you are leaving [...] We should all leave. But oh, God, we belong to this place. How can we live anywhere else?” 

 

“How many of us had felt that we had suffered alone at the hands of the militants or the state or the Indians? But we were not alone; as I had placed one story next to another [...] I could see how each small piece fit, until the whole war stretched out around us, its costs forrific and fathomable.” 

 

“When the wrong person asks you to do the right thing, do you do it?”