A Passage North

 
　　一通突如其來的電話，Krishan得知照顧他祖母的Rani，被人發現葬身在村莊北邊的一口水井底，死因是墜落造成的頸骨斷裂。他還在思考該如何應對這個消息時，下一秒就收到來自Anjum的郵件；一個激進的憤青，同時也是Krishan在德里求學時有過一段情的舊識。這喚醒了他過往的回憶和情緒，於是他訂了火車票，前往戰後殘敗的北斯里蘭卡參加祖母的喪禮，同時回味過往那段戀情的細節。
 
　　隨著Krishan的視角深入北斯里蘭卡，從繁榮的南方大城可倫坡出發，慢慢地踏進傷痕累累的北方。作者以如紀錄片、如詩般的文字，紀念在這一塊土地上失去的，以及留下的那些生命與痕跡。

　　(文／博客來外文館)

　　SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE
　　A young man journeys into Sri Lanka’s war-torn north in this searing novel of longing, loss, and the legacy of war from the author of The Story of a Brief Marriage.
 
　　“A novel of tragic power and uncommon beauty.”—Anthony Marra
“One of the most individual minds of their generation.”—Financial Times

　　A Passage North begins with a message from out of the blue: a telephone call informing Krishan that his grandmother’s caretaker, Rani, has died under unexpected circumstances—found 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 impassioned yet aloof activist Krishnan fell in love with years before while living in Delhi, stirring old memories and desires from a world he left behind. 
 
　　As Krishan makes the long journey by train from Colombo into the war-torn Northern Province for Rani’s funeral, so begins an astonishing passage into the innermost reaches of a country. At once a powerful meditation on absence and longing, as well as an unsparing account of the legacy of Sri Lanka’s thirty-year civil war, this procession to a pyre “at the end of the earth” lays bare the imprints of an island’s past, the unattainable distances between who we are and what we seek.
 
　　Written with precision and grace, Anuk Arudpragasam’s masterful novel is an attempt to come to terms with life in the wake of devastation, and a poignant memorial for those lost and those still living.

　　SEE LESS
　　 of an island’s past, the unattainable distances between who we are and what we seek.
 
　　Written with precision and grace, Anuk Arudpragasam’s masterful novel is an attempt to come to terms with life in the wake of devastation, and a poignant memorial for those lost and those still living.
　　
　　SEE LESS
　　of an island’s past, the unattainable distances between who we are and what we seek.
 
Written with precision and grace, Anuk Arudpragasam’s masterful novel is an attempt to come to terms with life in the wake of devastation, and a poignant memorial for those lost and those still living.

　　SEE LESS
　　of an island’s past, the unattainable distances between who we are and what we seek.
 
　　Written with precision and grace, Anuk Arudpragasam’s masterful novel is an attempt to come to terms with life in the wake of devastation, and a poignant memorial for those lost and those still living.

　　SEE LESS
　　of an island’s past, the unattainable distances between who we are and what we seek.
 
　　Written with precision and grace, Anuk Arudpragasam’s masterful novel is an attempt to come to terms with life in the wake of devastation, and a poignant memorial for those lost and those still living.

Anuk Arudpragasam was born in Colombo, Sri Lanka, and moved to the United States at the age of eighteen, where he attended Stanford and Columbia University. His first novel, The Story of a Brief Marriage, was translated into six languages, won the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature, and was shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize. He currently lives between Sri Lanka and India.