Taking on a complex history
Vasugi Ganeshananthan talks about her latest book, Brotherless Night, a story about ordinary Jaffna women caught up in the cross currents of war
In 1981 Jaffna, all 16-year-old Sashikala “Sashi” Kulenthiren wants to do is become a doctor like her grandfather, stay close to her brothers, and earn respect in a discriminatory society ignited by British post-colonial policy.
It is the onset of the civil war and the security forces are battling Tamil militant groups, namely the Tamil Tigers (LTTE), who are fighting for a separate state in Sri Lanka’s North and East.
Published in January of this year, and only just making its way to bookstores in the country, in Brotherless Night, V.V. (Vasugi) Ganeshananthan offers a unique (and devastating) perspective from within the civilian Jaffna community at the very heart of the war.
“I wanted to write a book set in Jaffna because I felt that this was a place I know and deserved more representation,” explains Vasugi. “Also, sometimes there’s a kind of fetishisation or exoticisation of war ‘of that wartorn distant place so cut off and isolated,’ and actually Jaffna is very much a part of the world, so I really do hope that comes through.”
“Of course, these are also the stories I grew up hearing about that period, so I specifically wanted to write about the ordinary lives of civilians and about Tamil’ness. What does it mean to be a Tamil person? And under circumstances that are incredibly challenging?”
It becomes increasingly evident that Vasugi –“please, call me Sugi” – intends for the experiences of Tamil women to take centre-stage, highlighting the many roles women quietly and not-so-quietly play in conflict.
“I was particularly interested in making this a story about Tamil civilian women in Jaffna at the beginning of the war because I’ve always felt the stories that have been written so far have been about women cadres and the Tigers. And while I feel that those stories do deserve to be written about, they too often dominate the story of Tamil women, when in fact the majority of Tamil women at the time were not cadres, but instead holding down domestic spaces, being displaced, and often subject to sexual violence. I wanted to tell a story of the impact of militarisation on women different from the ones I’ve seen, and I say that with a lot of respect for those I have already read.”
With a hat tip also to the coercive power of peaceful resistance in many forms, and even a character mirroring the life of Sri Lankan Tamil human rights activist and feminist Rajani Thiranagama, in addition to the power of community, friendships, and particularly the friendships of women, Sugi also says she wants to “call attention to the potential strengths of civil society in mobilising to resist and reject fascism in multiple forms.”
As the novel progresses, we watch, how Sashi’s entire world, dreams and innocence are torn apart, learning alongside with her how youth so bright and self-assured can be driven to guns and bloodshed. How ordinary civilians find themselves caught in the crossfire (both literal and figurative) with families fracturing over differing allegiances.
Born and raised in the US to Sri Lankan Tamil parents who migrated in the 1970s, Sugi says that as an adult she has made it a point to visit Sri Lanka every couple of years. A former vice president of the South Asian Journalists Association, she is presently a member of the boards of the American Institute for Sri Lankan Studies and teaches in the MFA program at the University of Minnesota, and also co-hosts the Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast on Literary Hub.
Having grown up with a complexity of narratives, she gratefully concedes that in addition to the extensive research that went into the writing of the book -nearly 20 years in the making!she primarily drew from the many stories generously shared by civilians, ex-militants, journalists, and scholars, of life under militarisation at the hands of the Sri Lankan military forces, Tamil militants, the LTTE, and also the IPKF – translating into a novel that neatly weaves political complexities and lived experiences into a powerful and immersive narrative.
“This is also partly a story about propaganda, about political theatre, and the people who like to dominate the way stories are told, so I had to try to listen with a critical ear, and to hold myself to a higher standard as a storyteller.”
As a journalist, Sugi writes from a place of nuanced political and historical understanding – yet in exquisite prose evoking deep empathy sans sensationalism.
“I’m not a historian, and at least in this context I’m not a journalist. I didn’t write a book of non-fiction because I felt that there have been several works of non-fiction on this topic that already exist and are well-written.”
“There’s also been a denial and intentional obscuring of reality around this whole period of time and so I guess I was also interested to know if hyperrealism in fiction would be a way to combat this kind of erasure rather than putting the real facts outright. Putting real feeling attached to real truth in the form of a fictional story, I feel, is a pretty subversive way to combat that.”
“I also took the licence that a fiction writer can take, so I hope that the book is also absorbing rather than didactic.”
While Brotherless Night brings into sharp focus conversations on morality, allegiances, and the rhetoric surrounding conflict, minor themes of casteism and classism also mark their subtle, yet pervasive presence.
“I didn’t expect the book to be exhaustive on all fronts but I did want these elements to be present because they’re still very much present in the world and in our societies,” she says. “These things don’t have tidy resolutions, and Sashi doesn’t necessarily take action to solve them, but these are intentionally made part of the conversation for readers to move through along with the story.”
Sugi’s debut novel Love Marriage (published in 2008) was named one of The Washington Post Book World's Best of 2008 and longlisted for the Orange Prize. A multi-generational
work, it explores the intersections of family, love, tradition and exile set against the backdrop of the civil war.
Brotherless Night, soon after its release, was selected as a New York Times Editor's Choice novel, lauded by several well-established authors, and even chosen for the cover of The New York Times Book Review. As a writer of colour working in the international literary space, Sugi feels that this is both gratifying and indicative of an exciting future for authors from marginalised communities.
“There are certain aspects about publishing that make it seem like there can be only one Sri Lankan when there are endless others. So, if readers are here for the material rather than my style, I hope this would lead them to learn other things about the material. I hope my book takes people to Romesh Gunesekera, Anuk Arudpragasam, and the many other Sri Lanka writers and the stories they choose to tell.”
“There are so many contemporary Sri Lankan writers that I haven’t yet read myself, and there also have been several that have done this before me, and to be part of this conversation is terrific.”
While the book has readers asking all the right questions on violence, the people really behind it, and the many many ways peoples across divides pay the price of war, when would Sugi herself personally consider the book a success?
“The minute I was willing to get it published,” she says simply. “Especially having been told by many that I was taking on an undoable task.”
“I think history can be anything that a person has endured, and I hope that I have in some way done right by the people I interviewed, the stories I read, and the histories that I attempted to restore to the fictional page. But mainly to show that it isn’t a story that is unapproachable or impossible to tell or too complex. That it isn’t a story of strangers, of unknowable people.”
“That I dared myself to take on this complex history that I myself didn’t live through and having had so much help in doing it, a lot of that has been my reward. But in the end, Brotherless Night has done for me what I needed it to do. I have learned what I wanted to learn from writing it.”