Brotherless Night

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In both cases, I was presented with a very strong first-person voice I could just follow into the story. In that way, the process of writing was actually quite similar. My first novel was written under various kinds of guidance and supervision from other writers. Much of the first draft of Love Marriage was completed while I was in college and studying with Jamaica Kincaid, so she had a lot to do with how I thought about that book. Brotherless Night is a novel that I started as an MFA student, and then obviously, I completed it much later. So I had to learn how to work more independently after graduating and moving into the space of being a working writer. This book was a bit out of my typical comfort zone, but it is good to mix it up once in a while. A fictional account that reads like a memoir, It is a tough story because so much of what occurs is not fiction. It really happened and continues to happen all over the world as in so many cases the revolutionaries fighting for independence turn out to be as dangerous as the oppressors as does the outside forces that intervene. VVG: It seems to me that in war, women are vulnerable from so many angles, over such a long period, and particularly in relation to militarization and sexual violence, and that this does not get enough attention. And women’s resistance to this, which by necessity is often subversive, receives little attention, too. I had heard so many stories of what happened to women during the war, and those were the stories that stayed with me. So those were the stories that had to be in here. In this, again, I looked to The Broken Palmyra: Rajani Thiranagama, one of its authors, wrote in that book about what women endured. It was an example of compassion and solidarity that set the standard for what I wanted to do in Brotherless Night.

SP: You mentioned that you want to reach Tamil readers specifically, and I would love to hear more about that. What do you hope that they will take away from this? I rate this historical fiction book a solid 4 stars. It is set during the Sri Lankan civil war, between the Sinhalese majority and the Tamil minority. The war lasts more than 25 years. The book centers on one Tamil family and how the vicious war affects them. Both sides kill and torture civilians. The narrator is 16 year old Sashi in 1981. She wants to be a doctor, a very difficult goal in a male dominated society.

Hundreds of thousands of civilians were caught between the armies while the United Nations and the world watched without sending aid. SM: How do they live there? How do your relatives actually live there? Day to day with all the bombings and the kidnappings? How do they go to school and shop for groceries? How do they do all the things that people do in cities? In 1981 Jaffna, sixteen-year-old Sashikala “Sashi” Kulenthiren dreams of becoming a doctor just like her eldest brother Niranjan and her late grandfather who was a renowned physician in Colombo. But as the civil war in Sri Lanka intensifies and violence ensues between the warring factions- the Sinhalese government and the Tamil militants who are fighting for an independent state free of persecution of the Tamils, life as she has known it shall be changed forever. When one of her brothers loses his life in an act of anti-Tamil violence and two of her brothers and a family friend join the “movement” Sashi finds herself making choices and being drawn into a life she had never imagined for herself- a medical student also working as a medic for those serving in the movement. As she bears witness to the politics, the violence, and the activism of the 1980s she eventually embarks on exposing the true plight of civilians caught in the crossfire between the warring factions of the Sinhalese government, Tamil militants and the Indian peacekeeping forces through the written word with the help of one of her professors taking risks that could endanger her life and those of her associates. Here & Now's Deepa Fernandes speaks with V.V. Ganeshananthan about her novel " Brotherless Night," which centers around a Tamil family caught up in Sri Lanka's civil war. V.V. Ganeshananthan is the author of "Brotherless Night." (Sophia Mayrhofer) Book excerpt: 'Brotherless Night'

Everyone was going in the other direction, Niranjan told me later. I was trying to swim against a tide. But it feels wrong to reduce Brotherless Night to its aesthetic achievements when it feels so crucial, so important, so much more than its sentences or characters, its symbols or arcs. 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. I feel certain that if I met Sashi on the street, I would recognize her. This is a novel that works the particular alchemy of the best fiction: it feels like life, but more so. ETA: I need to add just a few words; I cannot stop thinking about what I have read, learned and experienced, as though firsthand. Atrocities were committed by all involved—the government, the terrorist groups, the Indian peacekeepers and the UN that failed to act. In shining a light on all sides, the book is balanced and fair. AM: The book is a significant departure from your first novel, Love Marriage (2008), in both style and content. Can you say something about how the act of writing this novel compared with that of your first one? SP: So, for people like me who love this book and want to understand the context even better, what are some of the top next books you would point us toward?There is a civil war going on in Sri Lanka in 1981- and sixteen-year-old Sashi reveals what it means to be swept up in the violence and confusion. The good guys are ruthless, people she loves take incredibly cruel actions, and Sashi finds that even following her conscience has regrettable consequences. Author V. V. Ganeshananthan cast us as witnesses alongside Sashi to the scorched earth unfolding in the wake of the fight. A courageous young Sri Lankan woman tries to protect her dream of becoming a doctor in this “heartbreaking exploration of a family fractured by civil war” (Brit Bennett, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Vanishing Half). 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. V. V. Ganeshananthan drew me in from the very first line, and the intricacies of her characters' lives made it easy to stay Sara Novic, New York Times bestselling author of TRUE BIZ SP: You were really careful to show a lot of different women in this conflict in a variety of ways while trying to claim some kind of agency. Tell me about that focus.