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Brotherless Night

V.V. Ganeshananthan

Penguin Books 2023 | 341 pages
E25-05

'Brotherless Night' is set against the backdrop of Sri Lanka's civil war in the 1980s. The story follows a Tamil girl, Sashi, who dreams of becoming a doc-tor. She and her four brothers study and love going to the library together, but as the conflict deepens and the library is burnt down, studying becomes increasingly difficult and the boys secretly join the Tamil Tigers. As the war intensifies, Sashi starts working as a medic at a Tamil Tigers field hospital. However, her resolve is tested when the rebels turn to their own people and Indian peacekeepers arrive that commit further atrocities. Sashi's life takes a significant turn when a Tamil feminist and dissident pro-fessor invites her to join a secret project documenting human rights viola-tions. This dangerous path forces Sashi to confront her beliefs and the harsh realities of war, ultimately changing her forever. This winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2024 is a must-read for anyone interested in historical fiction.

References in the press

New York Times, Omar El Akkad, 1 Jan. 2023, ‘Terrorist’-to whom?:
Omar el Akkad finds this novel historical accurate and ‘deeply concerned with real moments in a real war, real bloodshed.’ For him, one of the best scenes involves a meeting of Sashi’s book club ‘(..) the members gather to discuss a particularly subversive text, only to find that the girlfriend of a Tamil Tigers member has decided to join them. What follows is a tense, loaded conversation between people who know how quickly a wrong word could upend their lives.’
Goodreads, 29 April 2024,
On Goodreads, 56% of the readers gave 5 stars and 33% gave 4 stars, while fewer than 1% of readers gave 1 star.
Jsiva (4 stars) found the novel easier to read than expected, considering the subject:
‘I was bracing myself for the lurid details of the horrid and numerous rapings that occurred where the Tamil media was happy to grotesquely detail and take images of, but V.V. managed to give them their dignity while not hiding it either.’
Goodreads, 8 February 2024
Lisa gave just 1 star: ‘But what a slog. Although it was written in a first-person narrative, it was more like dry and impersonal war reporting. The narrator was not developed as a character and did not reflect on the decisions she and her brothers made during the conflict.’

Recommendations

Rajan Hoole, The broken palmyra.
Shehan Karunatilaka, The seven moons of Mali, winner of the 2022 Booker Prize: a photographer who is killed in Colombo in 1990 ‘has seven moons to contact the man and woman he loves most and lead them to the photos that will rock Sri Lanka.’
Kumali Jayawardena, Feminism and nationalism in the third world, 1982/1986. This book is discussed in the novel’s feminist reading group (see chapter 11, part III).