Brotherless Night

V. V. Ganeshananthan · b. 1980 · Sri Lanka / United States

Why it matters

A sixteen-year-old aspiring doctor in Jaffna watches her brothers and first love join the Tamil Tigers as civil war erupts, becoming a field medic amid the human cost on every side of the conflict. Twenty years in the making, and one of the essential English-language novels of Sri Lanka's civil war.

At a glance

Heavy historical and wartime material is carried by clear, readable prose within a mostly linear frame.