A young man journeys into Sri Lankaโs war-torn north in this searing novel of longing, loss, and the legacy of war from the author of The Story of a Brief Marriage.
โOne of the most individual minds of their generation.โโFinancial Times
โA novel of tragic power and uncommon beauty.โโAnthony Marra
A Passage North begins with a message from out of the blue: a telephone call informing Krishan that his grandmotherโs caretaker, Rani, has died under unexpected circumstancesโfound at the bottom of a well in her village in the north, her neck broken by the fall. The news arrives on the heels of an email from Anjum, an impassioned yet aloof activist Krishnan fell in love with years before while living in Delhi, stirring old memories and desires from a world he left behind.
As Krishan makes the long journey by train from Colombo into the war-torn Northern Province for Raniโs funeral, so begins an astonishing passage into the innermost reaches of a country. At once a powerful meditation on absence and longing, as well as an unsparing account of the legacy of Sri Lankaโs thirty-year civil war, this procession to a pyre โat the end of the earthโ lays bare the imprints of an islandโs past, the unattainable distances between who we are and what we seek.
Written with precision and grace, Anuk Arudpragasamโs masterful novel is an attempt to come to terms with life in the wake of devastation, and a poignant memorial for those lost and those still alive.