A Passage North

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Pub Date 15 Jul 2021 | Archive Date 2 Aug 2021

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Description

From a prize winning Sri Lankan author, a story of age and youth, loss and survival that builds into a magisterial reckoning with mortality.

It begins with a message: a telephone call informing Krishan that his grandmother's former care-giver, Rani, has died in unexpected circumstances, at the bottom of a well in her village in the north, her neck broken by the fall. The news arrives on the heels of an email from Anjum, an activist he fell in love with four years earlier while living in Delhi, bringing with it the stirring of distant memories and desires.

As Krishan makes the long journey by train from Colombo into the war-torn Northern Province for the funeral, so begins a passage into the soul of an island devastated by violence. Written with precision and grace, A Passage North is a poignant memorial for the missing and the dead, and a luminous meditation on time, consciousness, and the lasting imprint of the connections we make with others.

From a prize winning Sri Lankan author, a story of age and youth, loss and survival that builds into a magisterial reckoning with mortality.

It begins with a message: a telephone call informing...


Advance Praise

"Mesmerizing, political, intimate, unafraid - this is a superb novel, a novel that pays such close, intelligent attention to the world we all live in" - Sunjeev Sahota, author of The Year of the Runaways

"Anuk Arudpragasam's A Passage North is a profound and disquieting account of the making of a self, of the pressures of history, desire, will, and chance that determine the shape of a life. It's difficult to think of comparisons for Arudpragasam's work among current English-language writers; one senses, reading his two extraordinary novels, a new mastery coming into being" - Garth Greenwell, author of Cleanness and What Belongs to You

"A Passage North is written with scrupulous attention to nuance and detail. Its world is the deeply-layered, rich interior of its protagonist's mind but also contemporary Sri Lanka itself, war-scarred, traumatized. While the narrative is filled with images of violence and loss, at its center is an exquisite form of noticing, a way of rendering consciousness and handling time that connects Arudpragasam to the great novelists of the past" - Colm Toíbín, author of Brooklyn

"Mesmerizing, political, intimate, unafraid - this is a superb novel, a novel that pays such close, intelligent attention to the world we all live in" - Sunjeev Sahota, author of The Year of the...


Available Editions

EDITION Hardcover
ISBN 9781783786947
PRICE £14.99 (GBP)

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Average rating from 29 members


Featured Reviews

It begins with a message: a telephone call informing Krishan that his grandmother's former caregiver, Rani, has died in unexpected circumstances, at the bottom of a well in her village in the north, her neck broken by the fall. The news arrives on the heels of an email from Anjum, an activist he fell in love with four years earlier while living in Delhi, bringing with it the stirring of distant memories and desires. As Krishan makes the long journey by train from Colombo into the war-torn Northern Province for the funeral, so begins a passage into the soul of an island devastated by violence.

I enjoyed the characters, story and pacing of the novel. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has been to Sri Lanka, wants to go to Sri Lanka, or is interested in different places, customs and people. This is a first for me by the author and one I enjoyed and would read more of their work. The book cover is eye-catching and appealing and would spark my interest if in a bookshop. Thank you very much to the author, publisher and Netgalley for this ARC.

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Quite a slow burner, this one, but enjoyable non the less. Set in Sri Lanka, this books deals with life and death in equal measures. If you're looking to learn and understand a bit more about Sri Lanka, then you will enjoy this read.

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