THE ART OF DARKNESS
By making visible the suffering of Sri Lanka, this graphic novel both exhausts and enlightens
WWhy do we read war stories? To celebrate heroes, and to learn empathy.
Vanni is a story of pain and loss, repeating in cycles, stealing away joy and loved ones, breaking hearts and homes and leaving the protagonists—and this reader—exhausted but privileged to be alive. The book traces the journey of one family among the millions caught up in the last phases of the civil war between the Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lankan government. It is fiction inspired by real events, documents and interviews. The details on every page are lit with accuracy: Benjamin Dix, the writer, worked in the United Nations office in Sri Lanka till all the staff were forced to evacuate in 2008. Londonbased illustrator Lindsay Pollock packs every panel with palm trees, sweat and uncertainty.
The three-decade-long ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka is far away, but to see its graphic depiction is to personally experience the ebbs and flows of war. When families huddle together at night, sharing a morsel of rice, they speak of a calm, happy future together. They imagine college degrees finished on time, meals with many soft idlis, long baths in the sea, and clean bodies wearing clean clothes. We know it is not coming; we know the Sri Lankan civil war killed over 40,000 and displaced millions. When the spirited families in Vanni stop dreaming—not just of a separate homeland, but even of a mundane, stable life—it is unbearable. When hope dies, true darkness descends.
At the core of the book, for about 50 pages, one wants by Benjamin Dix (author) & Lindsay Pollock (illustrator)
`799; 190 pages
VANNI A Family’s Struggle Through the Sri Lankan Conflict
to give up, just as the protagonists do. ‘The weeks dragged past. It became unremarkable to see people shuffling past with horrible injuries. Despite their fears, the Ramachandrans were often bored.’ I was too, sick of the recurrence, uncertain of what was to come, wanting the skies to clear just for a minute. And just then, Rajini and Antoni find their son dead. They hold the small body in shock, but the cluster bombs rain on them again.
Soldiers, militants and politicians might tell us otherwise, but for most people, war has no glory. The book suggests this in several shades of black and white, but especially in Pollock’s recurring sketches of white eyes, open wide in disbelief, horror and sleeplessness.
Perhaps we read war stories for us, not them. To learn the ravages of hate, and work actively at not being at war.
—Rohini Mohan