Brotherless Night

A Novel

By: V. V. Ganeshananthan

Narrated by: Nirmala Rajasingam

Length: 13 hrs and 28 mins

Publisher's summary

New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice • A courageous young Sri Lankan woman tries to protect her dream of becoming a doctor in this “heartbreaking exploration of a family fractured by civil war” (Brit Bennett, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Vanishing Half).

“This book, a careful, vivid exploration of what’s lost within a community when life and thought collapse toward binary conflict, rang softly for me as a novel for our own country in this odd time.”—Nathan Heller, The New Yorker

AN NPR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • FINALIST FOR THE MINNESOTA BOOK AWARD • SHORTLISTED FOR THE CAROL SHIELDS PRIZE FOR FICTION • LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR FICTION • LONGLISTED FOR THE ASIAN PRIZE FOR FICTION

Jaffna, 1981. Sixteen-year-old Sashi wants to become a doctor. But over the next decade, a vicious civil war tears through her home, and her dream spins off course as she sees her four beloved brothers and their friend K swept up in the mounting violence. Desperate to act, Sashi accepts K’s invitation to work as a medic at a field hospital for the militant Tamil Tigers, who, following years of state discrimination and violence, are fighting for a separate homeland for Sri Lanka’s Tamil minority. 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. When one of her medical school professors, a Tamil feminist and dissident, invites her to join a secret project documenting human rights violations, she embarks on a dangerous path that will change her forever.

Set during the early years of Sri Lanka’s three-decade civil war, Brotherless Night is a heartrending portrait of one woman’s moral journey and a testament to both the enduring impact of war and the bonds of home.

©2023 V. V. Ganeshananthan (P)2023 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“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. . . . This book, a careful, vivid exploration of what’s lost within a community when life and thought collapse toward binary conflict, rang softly for me as a novel for our own country in this odd time.”—The New Yorker

“Riveting, heartbreaking and extraordinary . . . Brotherless Night is a masterpiece.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune

“A blazingly brilliant novel . . . With immense compassion and deep moral complexity, V. V. Ganeshananthan brings us an achingly moving portrait of a world full of turmoil, but one in which human connections and shared stories can teach us how—and as importantly, why—to survive.”—Celeste Ng, New York Times bestselling author of Little Fires Everywhere

Another amazing book by Vasugi

I love this story, for the story and the way it is wriiten. Amazing story of a girl in a war zone that tried to do the right thing.

Stunning

One of the best books I have read/listened to in a very long time…

Heartbreaking

The book captures the complexity of being a Tamil in Jaffna. An individual had to balance the duty to the culture, to a race and to humanity as a whole. The author captures this balance with the depth and clarity it deserves. A stunning book for the world to appreciate

Heartbreaking…

As a Tamil Diaspora living in States who has gone through some of this 80s experience in person, the story touched into the core of the soul possibly, my DNA….
Thank you for taking the time to tell this complex story. Hope more non-Tamils would read or listen to this sad tragic story of a nation.

A story of courage

The events told in this story are often heart-wrenching. But the lessons on courage are unmistakable. Well worth your time.

Likely an unimaginable story to you…

And likely one you should read and consider.
It’s both a particular story of a narrator and the people and places she holds dear as well as a much larger story about insurrection, civil war, terrorism, point-of-view. “History is written by the victors” said Winston Churchill. This searing novel reads like memoir; the narrator having sustained unimaginable losses (including bothers) lives to right the record.

Boring!

The narrator had a monotonous delivery…story had too many uninteresting characters. Names were difficult to decipher and decern who was who.