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Brotherless Night by V.V. Ganeshananthan
5.0
challenging dark emotional sad medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated
𝜀 π’˜π’‚π’π’• π’šπ’π’– 𝒕𝒐 𝒖𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒏𝒅: π’Šπ’• 𝒅𝒐𝒆𝒔 𝒏𝒐𝒕 π’Žπ’‚π’•π’•π’†π’“ π’Šπ’‡ π’šπ’π’– 𝒄𝒂𝒏𝒏𝒐𝒕 π’Šπ’Žπ’‚π’ˆπ’Šπ’π’† 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒇𝒖𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒆. π‘Ίπ’•π’Šπ’π’, 𝒓𝒆𝒍𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒍𝒆𝒔𝒔, π’Šπ’• π’„π’π’Žπ’†π’”.

π‘Ύπ’‚π’Šπ’•π’Šπ’π’ˆ π’˜π’‚π’” π’Žπ’š 𝒕𝒓𝒖𝒆 𝒄𝒂𝒓𝒆𝒆𝒓, 𝜀 π’”π’π’Žπ’†π’•π’Šπ’Žπ’†π’” π’•π’‰π’π’–π’ˆπ’‰π’•; 𝜀 π’˜π’‚π’Šπ’•π’†π’… 𝒇𝒐𝒓 π’Žπ’š 𝒃𝒓𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒔, 𝒇𝒐𝒓 π’ˆπ’π’—π’†π’“π’π’Žπ’†π’π’•π’”, 𝒇𝒐𝒓 π’‘π’π’π’Šπ’•π’Šπ’„π’Šπ’‚π’π’”, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒇𝒐𝒓 π’†π’™π’‚π’Žπ’Šπ’π’†π’“π’”. 𝜀 π’˜π’‚π’Šπ’•π’†π’… 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝑲, 𝜀 π’˜π’‚π’Šπ’•π’†π’… 𝒇𝒐𝒓 π’Žπ’š 𝒇𝒂𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓. 𝜀 π’˜π’‚π’Šπ’•π’†π’… 𝒇𝒐𝒓 π’˜π’‚π’“ 𝒕𝒐 𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒓𝒕

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Brotherless Night was a highly anticipated read for me and it didn't disappoint. I didn't know much about the Tamil Tigers and the history of Sri Lanka but it's not surprising to see the British empire at the beginning of a story about a country's descent into civil war. 

I am struggling to make my thoughts about this fantastic novel coherent. It explores so many important ideas relating to civil war, to genocide, to women's roles within those things. It considers ideas of medicine and the moral imperative of medical professionals to do no harm. 

The book focuses on Sashi, a teen studying to be a doctor and growing up in a house full of brothers. They are all embarking on life, studying, making plans and growing up in Sri Lanka as a family who are an ethnic minority suffering oppression from the Sri Lankan government. 

And it's important writing - bringing to attention the atrocities committed against the Tamil people and by the Tamil people. But what is striking about this novel, for me, is the intimacy. The exploration of how large scale events are lived, privately. That life continues, that moral decisions must be made and consequences lived with. That families are ripped apart and never reconciled.

And an elemental that I find comes back again and again in novels centred around colonial violence, civil war and oppression - connection to the land, connections to traditions, and the violent severing of peoples from their homes, their land and the heritage that runs through their veins. An image from this novel of civilians trapped on piece of land with the Tigers behind them and the government in front, both using and discarding Tamil bodies for their own designs is one that will never leave me. 

This was a truly brilliant book, and we should all be reading stories like this.