Review of BROTHERLESS NIGHT by V. V. Ganeshananthan

 4 Stars

The author won the 2024 Women’s Prize for Fiction for this book; I certainly understand why.

The novel is set in Jaffna, Sri Lanka. It focuses on 1981 to 1989, the earlier years of the Sri Lankan civil war between the Sinhalese-dominated government and Tamil separatist groups. The narrator is Sashi Kulenthiren, a Tamil, and the only daughter in a family with four sons. When the novel opens, she is sixteen and an aspiring doctor. One brother is killed in anti-Tamil riots and then two others join the militant Tamil Tigers. Once in medical school, Sashi’s friendship with K, a high-ranking member of the Tigers, leads her to become a medic in a Tigers’ field hospital, but she starts to question her role in the war.

I knew little about the Sri Lankan civil war, though I did know that the Tamil Tigers have been designated a terrorist group by several countries, including Canada. The book opens with Sashi addressing this issue; her opening sentence is “I recently sent a letter to a terrorist I used to know” and the first paragraph ends with her admission that she was once “what you would call a terrorist.” Her goal is to tell the story behind that label, to show that terrorists are made, not born. She emphasizes that in war people’s choices are often dictated by outside forces.

The minority Tamils are discriminated against and persecuted under majority Sinhalese rule so the emergence of groups like the Tigers fighting for a separate Tamil homeland is understandable. But then the Tigers, in order to establish their prominence, turn on other militant groups and civilians who for any reason are seen as a threat or disloyal. The killing of a respected teacher because he organized a cricket match between the boys of his school and the army team illustrates the extremism. The novel clearly shows that atrocities are committed by all involved in the war. Sashi embarks on documenting human rights violations committed not just by the Tamil Tigers, but by the Sri Lankan army and the Indian peacekeepers as well.

No side emerges as heroic. What is emphasized is the effects of war on ordinary people and families. Sashi’s family is torn apart, and she loses more than one loved one. As a medic, she sees how civilians suffer; her description of the rape of one young woman is horrific and heart-breaking. By recording the intimate and personal lives of people caught up in the war, the novel emphasizes the impact of war. Including the perspective of women adds to the novel’s effectiveness.

Several times, the narrator directly addresses the reader: “Imagine the places you grew up, the places you studied, places that belonged to your people, burned.” I see these direct pleas as challenging readers to have compassion for those caught in the middle of a war and to look for the truth behind the “official” stories told by the opposing sides of a conflict. Though the book is about the Sri Lankan civil war, the reader will clearly see parallels with what is currently happening in Ukraine and Gaza.

This is a coming-of-age tale, but it’s not just Sashi who learns and matures. The reader learns about the Sri Lankan civil war and is left pondering the answer to Sashi’s final questions: “Whose stories will you believe? For how long will you listen?”