Brotherless Nights
Shortly after I started reading Brotherless Nights by V.V. Ganeshananthan, I asked myself why I was reading yet another book about a war – this time about the early years of the civil war in Sri Lanka (1983–1989). I did this partly because the publisher Tropen Verlag had sent me a free review copy of the German translation of the book. But I also read it, because stories like this, even if they are difficult to read, provide readers with deeper insights into human experiences and the complexity of conflicts. Novels that offer emotional and ethical perspectives on wars are moving in a completely different way than historical data and facts about the same events. Brotherless Nights is a page-turner that made me cry a lot.
Sashi, the very likeable and strong protagonist of the book, is a Tamil girl from Jaffna who desperately wants to become a doctor. At the beginning of the story, she lives with her four brothers, her parents, and a dog in a beautiful house, prepares for her university entrance exams and has a secret crush on her neighbor K. But when several Sinhalese soldiers are murdered in northern Sri Lanka in 1983, nationwide pogroms against the Tamil minority break out. As a result, Tamil militias gain widespread support and the LTTE, or Tamil Tigers, emerge as the strongest group. They demand an independent Tamil state and violently fight for it – not even tolerating criticism from their own people. Sashi’s family is hit hard by the events and the individual members deal with them in different ways. In these dangerous times, Sashi begins her studies, while two of her brothers abandon their educational plans and join the Tigers instead. Family members begin to drift apart.
Sashi is very likeable and a truly impressive character, who consistently tries to form her own opinions and to make choices that she can stand by. She is inspired by other strong women, especially the mothers’ front and her anatomy professor Anjali. She is guided by her love for her family and friends as well as her desire to do good and to heal people as a budding doctor. Through her, Ganeshananthan’s novel shows that in times of war, right and wrong are rarely clear-cut – for example, is it right or wrong to treat your own brother after a bombing raid even if he is responsible for the deaths of many people? Sashi questions herself and her role; she grows with every new challenge. Brotherless Night is an intimate and unforgettable story of a country and a family coming undone.