Brotherless Night by V.V. Guneshananthan

 

Sashi lives with her family in Sri Lanka.  Her father works away from home so it is her mother, her four brothers and Sashi.  They are Tamil but seventy-five percent of the population is Sinhalese and her people are discriminated against by the majority government.  Sashi's family believes in education and Sashi and two of her brothers want to be doctors, another wants to be an architect while the last wants to be an engineer.  Their days are consumed with school and studying but there are rumbles of revolution.

As revolution and repression become realities, Sashi's life starts to become on of loss.  Her first crush, a friend of her brothers and the smartest person in her school, leaves to join the Tamil Tigers who are the main force of the revolution.  Soon two of her brothers join him.  Another brother is lost in the riots that take over a town one night and her grandmother's house is burnt down.   

Sashi only wants to be a doctor but she also wants to help those in need.  She starts working in a free clinic and soon is put on the government's watch list along with some of her teachers.  She works with her teachers to document the atrocities going on around her and is drawn deeper and deeper into the counterrevolution.

V. V. Guneshananthan is an American author but she is from a Tamil background.  She spent over twenty years researching this novel which won the Women's Prize for Literature in 2024.  The reader will read on, aghast at what is occurring in the country and the loss and torture that becomes everyday occurrences for those fighting the government for the same rights given the majority ethnic group.  This book is recommended for multicultural and literary fiction readers.