A Passage North by Anuk Arudpragasam

This book has been short listed for the Booker Prize this year, and it's author, a Sri Lankan of Tamil heritage, has set this book in his homeland. The island of Sri Lanka was divided by a terrible civil war for almost thirty years. It had its roots in an ethnic conflict between the island’s largely Buddhist, Sinhala-speaking population in the south and the Tamil minority in the north. In 2009 the war came to a bloody and unexpected end when Sri Lankan government forces attacked and overwhelmed the rebel-held north. This story focuses on the ongoing gap between north and south, and the trauma that war leaves behind, how that ripples out across genreations and communities, and how it is very hard to move beyond it, much less forget. The writing is so sparse as to seem clinical or precise when the content seems like it should be more emotional, but perhaps it is better to be dispassionate because it hits harder. I found myself a bit confused about how I felt about the book when I finished it, but have continued to think about it since so I would call it a success.