Brotherless Night is a brilliant, complex historical fiction from V. V. Ganeshananthan, she brings the first decade of the Sri Lankan Civil War to us through Sashi’s life as she comes of age in an incredibly fragmented world and follows her dream to study medicine.

We start and end in 2009 with Sashi in New York and travel back with her to spend the 1980’s with her.

Sashi’s family and world disintegrated around her and yet the power of human connection hanging by a thread survives all. The complexity and horror of living in Jaffna in the 1980’s shines through.

I can’t recommend this highly enough, the best book I have read in the last few years. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.


Note - there was something really wrong with the typesetting of the version I received every word with a double f was misprinted.

This novel is set during the backdrop of the Sri Lankan Civil War in Jaffna. The main characters are 16 year old Sashikala “Sashi” Kulenthiren and her family. The novel centres around Sashi as she tries to study to become a doctor whilst in living in war and her interactions with her family, especially her four brothers and her love interest who are caught up in this unrest and violent conflict and learning to survive the best way she can. You cannot but feel the pain through Sashi. I enjoyed this novel immensely. I would have been roughly the same age as Sashi was in the time this was set. Although I was aware of the Sri Lankan conflict, I did not know too much about it. This novel not only increased my knowledge but also made me quite emotional, but in the end this family was torn apart by their personal beliefs about the war and having no choice but to wage the war against the atrocities happening to the civilians. The only ones who suffer in this are the innocents who get caught up in the crossfire and so many people who were once friend are now divided. Without revealing too much it does not matter how much a good person you are sometimes you do things that you would not normally do in the name of war and your beliefs. The only one downside was some of the words in Tamil were not explained but otherwise I would thoroughly recommend this title. (

Sashi has to be in my top five of literary heroes now I've ready Brotherless Night. At times uncomfortable reading and definitely touching on difficult, dark themes - there are some breathtaking moments around family and the role they play in our past, present and futures. And importantly, brotherhood and what it means in all it's forms.
A truly astonishing book that unravels the mysteries around siblings and how blood does not always mean forever.

First class. Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the ARC in return for an honest review.

This book was quite intense reading. Shashi has four brothers, we meet them as a family when they all have dreams - of going to University in Jaffna or in Colombo, of becoming doctors, engineers etc. But then the civil war starts and slowly their ordered life disintegrates. Sashi loses most of her brothers, one way or another and loses the boy she fell in love with.
This story is fictional, but the big events in the background are true. I remember hearing about them on the news. (I grew up in Colombo in the 80s)
This is an important book, too. It's told from the perspective of a character who was an ordinary person living in Jaffna, even though she eventually became affiliated with the Tigers it was because of her commitment to healing people, rather than any political ideology. Life is complicated, so are people's motivations. Stories are often the best ways to show this sort of nuance.
The story is gripping. I highly recommend reading it if you want to understand the horror of living in the middle of a long running war.

This was such a beautiful read that was heartbreaking, yet oddly hopeful at times too. I loved the writing style and I fell in love with Sashi. A great read