The book is a history lesson on an event that was largely overlooked in the US. As a “story”, it’s slow, and very depressing; that doesn’t make it any less real. If you want to learn about this forgotten era of Sri Lankan history- read it. If you want to be entertained- skip it. The first half of the book is bogged down with unnecessary details of Sashi’s education. It picks up when Sashi realizes that she has an obligation greater than the one to her family and she becomes involved in the nationalism taking hold in Jaffna.

Wow. What a story. I finished this yesterday evening and whereas I would have usually immediately started another book, I didn't because I just wanted to sit with this story a little longer before another one began. Sri Lanka is one of my favorite countries I've visited, and I often wish I could find more novels set in Sri Lanka that don't revolve around the civil war. However, Ganeshananthan told this story so beautifully. She also managed to convey the brutality of the conflict without going into as much graphic/specific detail as almost all of the other fiction I've read about this period (though don't misunderstand me: the emotions were still brutal and the book is not without violent incidents). Definitely a favorite for 2023.

Brotherless Night is a beautifully written historical fiction book about a time period many may not know about - during the Sri Lankan Civil War, starting in the 1980s. The main character is a teenage girl at the start, with 4 older brothers, who dreams of becoming a doctor, as do 2 of her brothers and their close friend K. But as the riots and war break out, their lives are all changed. It really brings the war to life, shows how it affects this one family and everyone around them. The title is heartbreaking once you understand what it references. It's one of those wars where there isn't a right side and a wrong side, and the book really shows this conflict. This one will stick with me for a long time.

Brotherless Night is an amazing work of historical fiction. I knew little about the civil war in Sri Lanka and through excellent storytelling I learned so much. There are atrocities of many types from individual groups of people: the Indians, the so called Peacekeepers, the Tamil Tigers, and the civilians, bearing witness to the war.

I'm not sure why this book didn't garner more hype.

Formal review and links to come.

I absolutely loved V.V. Ganeshananthan's "Brotherless Night." I was instantly drawn in by the voice of Sashi and her retelling of experiencing the civil war in Jaffna. As we witness through her eyes to horrors of the war - and the atrocities committed by all sides involved - Sashi's relationship with her brothers and her homeland evolves. A beautifully written story that will stay with me for a long time.

I loved this book so much that upon finishing it, I immediately started it again. As someone who knew virtually nothing about the Sri Lankan civil war, it was incredibly informative - but more than that, it was deeply memorable. I finished this book in the second time in December, and even 1.5 months later, I still have a deep sense of the story and of Sashi, the main character.

What I think is most impressive about this book is how V.V. Ganeshananthan managed to tackle a topic so vast in scope (civil war lasting more than two decades!) and make it so remarkably intimate. And relatedly, she does a magnificent job of capturing and conveying heartbreak and nuance. As a reader, I understood, believed, and even sympathized with the choices of the people in Sashi's orbit, from each of her brothers to her favorite teacher's to the man she loves - there was no unequivocal "right" side, and Ganeshananthan doesn't oversimplify *or* overexplain. She trusts the characters' lived experiences to justify their decisions, regardless of their direction.

Overall, one of my favorite historical fiction novels in the past few years.

Thanks to Random House Publishing Group - Random House and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for my honest feedback.

Calling all historical fiction fans that are burnt out on World War II and European history, this one is for you! Now, it's set in the 80s and I know some don't quite consider that historical fiction yet, but this book deals with war and militant groups and a group of people many have probably never heard of.

The Tamil people of Sri Lanka have always felt like second-class citizens to the Sinhalese in Sri Lanka. In the early 80s conflict soars and the rise of militant groups causes a civil war. The main character in this book, sixteen-year-old Sashi, is the sister to four brothers. All four brothers are impacted by the militant group, The Tigers, and her entire family seems to orbit around the group for the next several years.

I loved this book because it questions everything you know to be right. The line between good and evil is so blurred, especially when the fighting is for your family. I knew nothing about this period of war or about the Tamil people. My heart broke for Sashi and her family. Sashi is a very strong female lead and I was sucked right into her story.

The author also paints an insightful picture of civil war as a whole and how everyday citizens are impacted. The Tamil Tigers were eventually categorized as a terrorist group. They did terrible things to the Sinhalese and their own Tamil people, all for what started out as a fight for equality.

This is why I read historical fiction. To learn about people, culture and places I knew nothing about. Thank you for NetGalley and Random House for an advanced copy of this book.

A moving, thought-compelling story that made me question what I thought about “terrorists.” A beautiful personalization of events rarely discussed, Brotherless Night gives beautiful dimension and vivid imagery to the Sri Lankan Civil War. Sashi is perfectly written! Strong, resilient, but painfully relatable.

BROTHERLESS NIGHT was intense. Novel paints a very compelling story for those neglected by the Sri Lankan government and its allies. Book made me want to read more about the Sri Lankan Civil War. I loved the MC and her voice — the opening chapter had me intrigued and I couldn’t stop reading until the last page even though some parts were so heart-wrenching to read.

This is such a powerful story about regular people trying to survive through a Civil War in Sri Lanka. This demonstrates how civil unrest plays out in normal lives. This focuses on family and friends, who choose different paths. The young folks are studying to try to be accepted into medical school to start their careers. As the uprising takes place, these people are suddenly uprooted from their daily lives into fleeing from the violence. This also affects their families and describes the fear, terror, and the horror that the families face as they flee the violence. This is such a heartbreaking account but such an important read.
Highly recommend especially if you like to learn about other cultures and situations. Check it out, you won't be disappointed.

#BrotherlessNight #NetGalley #RandomHousePublishingGroup

For readers who like character-driven fiction brimming with political and cultural history, BROTHERLESS NIGHT delivers a deep dive into Sri Lanka's decades of civil war. The author's epic, elegant storytelling reveals complex nuances of violence and vengeance. Teenaged Sashi is torn between loyalty to her family, her friends, and her own ambition to become a doctor. Unforgettable characters and lyrical details of life in Sri Lanka make this novel a top pick for libraries, book groups, or world literature classrooms. I especially appreciate scenes exploring ways that ordinary citizens tried to resist the forces of civil war and restore peace to their communities.

This book is an accomplishment on many fronts, but the exploration of the civil war in Sri Lanka is quite a feat. This long-lasting war provides the backdrop for Sashi’s story as a would-be doctor whose dreams are thwarted by the civil unrest.

Thank you @v_v_ganeshananthan and @penguinrandomhouse for the gifted copies of BROTHERLESS NIGHTS!

Years ago, in 2009-2011, when I was in my graduate school as a scholar of South Asian studies, I learned about the Sri Lankan civil war. In my classes, we discussed an anthropological scholar who had done ethnographic research on this difficult subject, but that was where my knowledge of the cataclysmic event stopped. It’s also where I met Sugi years ago. Lest, I knew, that one day I will be reading a moving story about everyday, ordinary people who were transformed as a result of this decades long conflict.

Sashi, the youngest among four brothers, aspires to become a doctor as her country faces tumultuous times. She is resilient, strong but also vulnerable and human. In the early 80s, Sashi bears witness to riots in Colombo, which triggers her and her family’s decisions years after. Once she returns to Jaffna, gradually the Tamil community is marginalized and often targeted.

She begins with her readers to think about what being a “terrorist” means, and then she unfolds her encounter with K, a boy who also longs to become a doctor but then after the Sri Lankan war becomes intense in the 1980s, becomes a part of the LTTE movement. Through K and Priya’s characterization, her novel complicates the notion of terrorism and humanizes their lives , while at the same time, demonstrating that wars causes us to make unimaginable decisions and choices we may not make in a different, peaceful world.

As the years unfold, Sashi is mentored by a professor named Anjali who not only guides her to become a good doctor, but also encourages her to stand up for truth. Although the ending will leave you gutted, this is a novel that should be read to understand about how war and political conflicts can transform us as human beings. And, that, all and every decision weighs heavily as the subsequent trauma becomes irreversible in nature. Ultimately, this novel reinforces the idea that it is the lives of ordinary people that is upended during a political war/conflict but also is often not told enough.


#BrotherlessNight #VVGaneshnathan #RandomHouse #PenguinRandomHouse

It's been a while since I've read the handful of books I want to compare this to, so I hope I am not being inaccurate or generalizing--I thought a lot about the experiences I had reading God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy, Dogeaters by Jessica Hagedorn, In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez, and some of Isabel Allende's work. These are all very different cultures in very different times (read over the last handful of decades from me--from high school to college to motherhood to now) but they all felt like they had that family saga (and I don't mean that in a soap opera way at all) in the midst of country's upheaval kind of narrative.

This was one of the first books I've read in a while that I had a hard time putting down. I have read a lot of beautiful books as of recently, but this one, I kept wanting to turn to--there are scenes in here that had me riveted, such as the one in which Ganeshananthan named her book for (in which the eldest brother goes into the night and--oh dear, spoilers, I will hush) and the clinic scenes--I could picture the courtyards and the fires and the food and the hands that held that food. I loved this book so much.

This will also appear in my permanent highlights on my Instagram account as a book I would recommend. This will be under "Book recs" and will remain there as long as I review books for NetGalley.

V. V. Ganshananthan’s Brotherless Night is a beautifully-written, detailed historical novel depicting the decades-long Sri Lankan civil war between the Sinhalese majority and Tamil minority.

Ganeshananthan opens the story in 2009 New York City as a first-person narrator speaks of sending a letter to a terrorist she used to know, including a note asking to visit him in the city where they both now live. What the rest of the “letter” concerns, readers don’t yet know. She speaks of having once done whatever “a certain type of person” asked her to do because she had also been what people would label a terrorist. She then explains that the name “terrorist” is an oversimplification, a handy label easily applied to a complex history—a time when ordinary civilians, like the people anyone knows and loves, too easily became known as “terrorists.”

Part I: The Near-Invisible Scar opens in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, 1981, with a long chapter titled “The Boys with the Jaffna Eyes” in which the 15-year-old narrator mentions how she first met the boy she calls K, her first terrorist, “when he was deciding to become one.” Aspiring medical students studying for entrance exams, K and the narrator’s brother were each a year older than she and included her in their study sessions at Jaffna Public Library since she, too, hoped to become a physician like her grandfather.

With the Tamil desire for an independent homeland in Northern Sri Lanka, the narrator’s brothers and father attend a political rally, which suddenly turns violent. When a Tamil radical shoots and kills two Sinhalese police officers, the police exact revenge, stopping young men on the streets and beating them, taking people from their homes, and burning a Tamil newspaper building, the Jaffna market, and Jaffna Public library. In this chapter, readers also learn that the narrator’s name is Sachi and that she has later become a New York Emergency Room doctor. Her path there will be much of her story.

With the full-fledged Sri Lankan civil war yet to start, the end of Chapter 1 already gives readers a taste of V. V. Ganeshananthan’s vivid skills. As crowds flee the political rally, as Jaffna market burns, and as the young people who studied at the library and the brother who worked there view the charred remains, readers will feel almost as though they, too, lived through the experience.

This is a heart-rending story of loss, love, home, and survival—of what it means to live with the past while also carving out a present and future.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for an advance reader copy of this eye-opening and highly-recommended historical novel.

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Sashi is 16, dreams of becoming a doctor, and she lives in Sri Lanka during the early 1980's when a civil war was underway. This novel reads like a memoir and the author skillfully takes you into what it feels like to live in a world torn apart by war. Choices that are clearer when not living a war zone become much more difficult when the world is falling apart around you and the author helps you empathize with Sashi and her choices. This is not an easy read AND it's a deeply involving one.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy of Brotherless Night in exchange for an honest review. The book is available now.

I thoroughly enjoyed this work of historical fiction. The writing is excellent, the characters compelling and the author shines a light on events that I knew nothing about. I so admired the main character's dedication to family and her persistence in pursuing a future filled with learning even amidst the most dire of circumstances. The moral dilemmas that she faces forced me to take another look at my own feelings about terrorism and war. Her efforts at exploring feminism and her own role in her country even as bombs were exploding around her were enlightening and inspiring. An important book that I am so glad I read. I look forward to recommending it to library patrons, as well as purchasing my own copy.

Brotherless Night by V.V. Ganeshanathan is the story of one woman’s journey through a thirty year civil war. Jaffna, 1981, sixteen year old Sashi wants nothing but to become a doctor. She wants to follow the path of her grandfather and older brothers. She has come to believe the medical mantra of “do no harm,” she studies harder and longer than anyone else. As she is ready to enter university, a vicious civil war rages on the island of Sri Lanka. Her dreams take her on a different path than she ever imagined as she watches those she loves and cares for get swept up in the radical political ideologies and the consequences of those beliefs. When she realizes that both sides are willing to commit atrocities, she finds herself on a dangerous path. Sashi finds herself asking: does anyone go through life without doing harm to others?
Brotherless Night is set in the early years of the Sri Lankan civil war. I was intrigued by this period of history that I was not aware of. Sri Lanka, an island off the coast of India, is home to diverse cultures, languages and ethnicities which have led to conflicts. Brotherless Night is a compelling read with the heartbreaking choices that many had to make for the life they felt they deserved. While the outside world may have seen them as unworthy and expendable, through Sashi’s eyes, readers see people trying to do what is right and others taking extreme measures to have a place in the world. The author writes sweeping, lyrical descriptions of the people as they fight this battle, as one quote stood out to me and stuck in my mind as I read: “Divided by colonial power, ancestral angers and bullheaded pride.” I recommend Brotherless Night.


Brotherless Night is available in hardcover, eBook, and audiobook.

A compassionate and detailed look at the lead up and aftermath of Black July, the culmination of the ethnic strife between Sinhalese and Tamils.

What drew me to this book is how Ganeshananthan aims at breaking down and building up the ripples and changes in both families and communities that were born as a result. She draws attention to how mothers, sisters, and grandmothers formed a movement to find the young men who had been rounded up by the army, to the young men who chose the militants to fight for their people and community, and the resulting pogroms and escalating violence.

She makes us question the capacity for hate and change in individuals and how to understand and approach the process of forgiveness and healing. Along with the fracture between the people of Sri Lanka, she portrays how families also break and reform or how new families are made from the rubble and circumstances of this violence.

In beginning the book with the word, terrorist, os just the start in a story that at its core is about humanising individuals regardless of the choices they had to make.

I was unaware of the decades long civil war that devastated Sri Lanka until picking up this book. Ganeshananthan provides vivid details into the lives of a family torn apart by the war, told through 16-year-old Sashi's eyes. Sashi is studying to become a doctor and soon finds herself questioning morality and how she can best serve. While this book started slow, the reader is quickly thrown into the turmoil of this war- gruesome acts, tough decisions, and divisions among the people. It was a crushingly beautiful read.