A Passage North
A Passage North (2021) is the second novel by Sri Lankan writer Anuk Arudpragasam. Its narrator, Krishan, is a diasporic Tamil who returned to his home country Sri Lanka after the end of the civil war, a conflict which lasted for over three decades until 2009.
The novel’s plot is simple: Krishan receives a phone call informing him of the death and upcoming funeral of his grandmother’s former caretaker, Rani. He then travels by train from his home in the capital city Colombo in southern Sri Lanka to Rani’s village in the island’s war torn northeast, where he attends her funeral.
It is this train journey, undertaken in solitude, which provides the basis for a meandering narrative. Tracing Krishan’s contemplations, the narrative digresses in varied directions, while always touching upon the central topics of trauma and war.
One such instance is when Krishan notices a large billboard by the Australian government aimed at discouraging displaced people from seeking refuge in Australia. The advertisement provokes Krishan to reflect on the circumstances and the trauma of those who leave Sri Lanka, and about his own privilege of having been spared from the violence of the war.
Even though – or precisely because – he was absent at the time and site of the atrocities, Krishan cannot escape the trauma of the violence of the war. Instead, he is repeatedly drawn back to the fact that he survived the catastrophe that killed so many of his people and that took away Rani’s two sons as well as her sanity.
Not only Krishan’s thoughts wander (and with it the narrative). Krishan is also a wandering narrator in the literal sense. The long walks he takes in his hometown, as well as the train journey through Sri Lanka, enable pondering that would not have been possible within the confines of his home. Letting his thoughts digress at the sight of the changing landscape from his train window, Krishan does not merely cover geographical distance on his journey. Instead, the journey marks a significant change in his understanding of the Tamil trauma in general, and Rani’s trauma specifically, as well as Krishan’s diasporic relation to it.
What I especially like about A Passage North is its use of narrative as a way to contemplate trauma without pretending to understand it completely. Krishan (as well as the readers) can acknowledge Rani’s trauma, but the unbreachable distance between them does not allow him to fully grasp its extent, even if that is what he wishes for.
A Passage North is a melancholic and insightful novel, filled with an abstract and unfulfillable longing for a pre-war world. I warmly recommend this novel to anyone who wishes to find out more about the Sri Lankan civil war and its aftermath by means of a contemplative yet empathetic narration.