Book Review: "Brotherless Night" by V. V. Ganeshananthan

“I would have told you that I went with him into the endless country of that trapped breath, a place where neither of us could cry out or make any human sound”

- "Brotherless Night" by V. V. Ganeshananthan

I found out about this book in the way that a lot of people did - through the awards it was listed for and yet, since finding out about it, I had still avoided it. It seemed like there was so much raving going on about the book that I was scared of being let down. But I assure you reader, this book will not let you down. It is a harrowing, heartbreaking depiction of one of the most tragic times in Sri Lanka's modern history told through the eyes of a girl who wishes to become a doctor whilst her brothers are getting out there and all caught up in the turbulence.

In this style of defend one side or the other, this book takes an almost 'Les Miserables' approach in showing us both sides of a morally ambiguous war that rages on whilst civilians (no matter who's side they are on) are made to suffer pain after pain.

Sashi wants to study medicine with her brother and his friend. She is badly burned in the first few pages of the book - I took this as a bad omen in which the natural surroundings will come to be a danger to those who inhabit the land because of its unpredictability (bombings, human damage etc.). When one of her older brothers is killed in an attack, the friend and brother go off to join the fight against hatred. Meanwhile, her youngest brother is also taken, much to the protest of the mother. There is a speechlessness amongst the men that means the women must try to fill the void. But even they cannot.

All the way through this, Sashi wants nothing more than to be a doctor: to heal her brothers, to heal the wounded and ultimately, to heal her country. All of this happens as the world not only looks on in horror, but does absolutely nothing about it - no aid, no army, no nothing. As she volunteers to help the sick and the wounded, we see Sashi become drawn closer and closer to the battle. When a patient who is also the victim of an attack becomes violent, enraged and vengeful, Sashi is moved to become the political woman she was meant to be all this time. But will this mean that she ultimately has to pick a side?

At sixteen I still hadn't touched 'Emergency '58' but I knew it was a brutal testimony to Sri Lanka's willingness to slaughter its own Tamil citizens. My father's slim, battered copy of the book had taken on the aura of something forbidden and terrifying. Did I need to read it to know that because we were ethnic minorities, Tamils were considered expendable?

- "Brotherless Night" by V. V. Ganeshananthan

Written in the style of a memoir, this author's writing almost feels too realistic with its intense descriptions of pain and suffering early on in the book. The way all the pain and suffering seems to centre on the one girl who wants to become a doctor is not ironic, but it shows the reader how far she can be pushed to deal and compartmentalise that pain she is feeling. As the pain turns into anger and the anger turns into shame, there is a grief that underlines the novel, constantly seeking to be heard, felt and ultimately, acknowledged.

The novel also opens our eyes on to the conflict that everyone knew about but nobody did anything about during this time. It reminds me of the Yemen conflict in our own times in a way. Everyone knows that it is happening and people are dying needlessly and yet, nobody wants to actually do anything about it. Governments, countries, people everywhere have abandoned their neighbours. Ultimately, it is a reminder that in the end we are all on our own to make our own decisions and our own steps and we should know that if we fall, nobody will really be there to catch us at all.

A frightening and tragic novel about the constant darkness that pervades the realities of war for the average civilian, I did not know all too much about this war before but, to learn about these experiences I think I definitely know things worth knowing about it now. It is not just the politics, the leaders or even the armies, it is the citizens of the country who have been impacted the most. This is because in war there is never a real winner, just a bunch of losers where one side has probably lost more than the other.