Brotherless Night: 'Blazingly brilliant' CELESTE NG

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The steadiness of the prose (which is not to say that it is cold or detached, just not overwrought) made me imagine and inhabit moments that I would have guessed were unimaginable. The whole thing centred around the attempts of the Tamil Tigers and their efforts to establish their rights. These women successfully organize a march to free their sons (something Sashi's father passively avoided), document human rights abuse through a series of "Reports," teach medical school classes under terrible conditions, and much more. What sticks with me the most is how blood is on everyone’s hands: the Sinhalese majority government, of course; the Tamil fighters who engage in indiscriminate bombing campaigns against civilian targets and in retributive Tamil-on-Tamil assassinations of those deemed too moderate or affiliated with a competing rebel group; Indian peacekeepers sent into the country allegedly to protect (fellow Hindu) Tamils; and finally, the UN, in the final days of the conflict in 2009, for allowing the almost unimaginable horror of hundreds of thousands of civilians being rounded up and used as completely disposable shields between the opposing armed sides in the conflict. It is a masterpiece, giving us one woman's perspective of the Sri Lankan Civil War, and simultaneously showing us how in that one perspective lies everything.

Ethnic violence by the Sinhalese against the Tamil resulted in a backlash; the Tamil Tigers arose, over time becoming equally as fearsome in their civilian attacks. Fairly early on in the book, a wave of anti-Tamil riots rips through Colombo, with Sinhalese mobs indiscriminately killing, raping, burning, looting and unleashing horror. This beautiful, nuanced novel follows a young doctor caught within conflicting ideologies as she tries to save lives. Riveting, heartbreaking and extraordinary for both its empathetic gaze and its clear-eyed depiction of the brutality of war, Brotherless Night is a masterpiece.I well remember downtown Toronto being brought to a virtual standstill for several days in early 2009 by hundreds of Tamil protesters who used their bodies to block major traffic arteries. I was entirely ignorant of events in Sri Lanka and I am ashamed now to remember being mostly annoyed by the inconvenience of being unable to get around freely. The brothers except one and K become part of the Tamil Tigers, the rebellion against the Sinhalese who control the military, police and government. 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.

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. The narrative pacing is flawless, the voice is irresistible, and the marriage of the two keeps the reader turning throughout. This book, a careful, vivid exploration of what’s lost within a community when life and thought collapse toward binary conflict, rang softly for me as a novel for our own country in this odd time.But there is no shortage or portrayal of the brutality of the Sri Lankan regime or the Indian "peace keepers". It's a fairly blunt and honest depiction of the banality of evil under oppression and it does not pull any punches, nobody is above criticism.