Anuk Arudpragasam: A Passage North
A young Sri Lankan contemplates the horrifying aftermath of his country’s civil war
World Book Club · BBC World Service
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Show Notes
A Passage North explores the impact of the vicious Sri Lankan civil war between Tamil and Sinhalese which tore Sri Lanka apart for two and a half decades before a fragile ceasefire was finally reached in 2009. When Krishan learns that his grandmother’s former carer Rani has died he makes the long journey north to attend the funeral across a country still traumatised and scarred by its recent past.
Written with precision and grace, A Passage North is a poignant memorial for the missing and the dead, and an unsettling meditation on what it means to have observed the war from afar rather than to have been personally caught up in its horrors.
(Picture: Anuk Arudpragasam. Photo credit: Ruvin De Silva.)