The story begins just before the Sri Lankan civil war starts as the discrimination against Tamils is growing culminating in the "Black July" pogroms against the Tamils in the summer of 1983. We see her daily conflicts and burdens evolving from trying to make sense out of violence and obsessive, unyielding beliefs on both sides. This novel makes heartbreakingly clear the horrific reality on the ground in Sri Lanka that those protestors (in Toronto and in major cities around the West) were trying to bring to the world’s attention.

When the beloved older brother is killed in an attack, two of her brothers and the friend join the Tamil Tigers. It did not occur to me to count or prove, to measure our losses for history or for other people to understand or believe. Also, Sashi wants to go to medical school and become a doctor and as war rages she has her fair share of hands on experience. This book was impossible to put down; the prose — or maybe it’s more accurate to say Sashi’s voice — had a momentum that just reached out and gripped me and never let go.All of this is bookended by a prologue and last chapter set in New York as the narrator looks from afar at the brutal ending of the civil war.

Brotherless Night succeeds in telling all its stories—the historical and the personal, the factual and the ethical—as one, and that narrative has echoes. We witness Sashi’s life in the years before and during Sri Lanka’s brutal civil war — another term that imposes a binary divide on a conflict that the book rightly portrays as something far more fractured. Ganeshananthan did a masterful job not only crafting this story and setting but also with her characterization. Over one million were killed and millions of Sri Lankans, mainly minority Tamils, were displaced as refugees both inside the country and abroad.Set in the early stages of Sri Lanka’s three-decade civil war, the author takes us through the turbulence of 1980s Jaffna/Colombo including Black July and its aftermath, combining historical fact with fiction. As she bears witness to the politics, the violence, and the activism of the 1980s she eventually embarks on exposing the true plight of civilians caught in the crossfire between the warring factions of the Sinhalese government, Tamil militants and the Indian peacekeeping forces through the written word with the help of one of her professors taking risks that could endanger her life and those of her associates. But after the Tigers murder one of her teachers and Indian peacekeepers arrive only to commit further atrocities, Sashi begins to question where she stands. Ganeshananthan drew me in from the very first line, and the intricacies of her characters’ lives made it easy to stay.

Brotherless Night tells the story of Sashi, a medical student, and her family, including four brothers, who are caught up in the unrest, violence, and ultimately, war in Sri Lanka in the 1980s. I have connected with few characters the way that I did Sashi and I will miss her now the story is over. She then becomes involved with a feminist project that documents human rights violations which changes her life forever. As part of the Tamil minority, her family is expected to support the militant group the Tamil Tigers. When the Sinhalese round up village boys and takes her youngest brother, her mother and the woman of the village gather in protest.

In the ensuing years, even as almost everything and everyone she knows is either taken from her or rendered unrecognizable, Sashi refuses to let her own life fall apart. Quote from a revered teacher: "Open your books, read while you can, and remember: there are people in our country who would burn what we love and laugh at the flames. The narrative itself is mostly in the first person, but the occasional use of the second person brilliantly pulls the reader into the story and, more importantly, into the decisions and reflections of the narrator, who is a young woman aspiring -- and working very hard -- to be a doctor. I have read books that touched on the Sri Lanka Civil War between the majority population Sinhalese and the Tamil minority.

When requests come from the militants — to pay them taxes, to move houses — it would essentially be suicide to refuse.The novel begins before the war when Sashi and her brother and his friend K are preparing to study medicine, meeting up at the library. And she does — but along the way, anti-Tamil violence costs her family dearly, in more ways than just lives: two of her brothers join the Tamil Tigers, as does a close family friend. This is a dark novel about a brutal conflict – Shashi, her family and her community suffer tragedy after tragedy - but it is well written and very moving. I’d recommend this title to get a glimpse of Sri Lanka and perhaps gain some insight into its current conditions.