![]() In childhood, Yasodhara is aware of cultural issues and snobberies about the Tamils, but when her father dies and her mother reluctantly rents out the upper floor of their house to a Tamil family, she forms a friendship with a Tamil boy called Shiva. The story is told by two young women, middle-class Yasodhara in Colombo in the south, and Saraswathi, a Tamil in the war-ravaged north. It is that brutal 25-year war which drives this powerful novel towards its devastating conclusion: when it’s all over, what was it for? But since the war began Australia has become home for many more people of Sri Lankan origin, and they came as refugees, fleeing the horrors of war. I listened to these enticing images and added Sri Lanka to my bucket list. They were economic migrants, who spoke nostalgically about the beauty of their home country and its sapphire blue waters. ![]() I had Sri Lankan friends before the civil war in Sri Lanka, which began in 1983. I think that this was because like many a first novel Island of a Thousand Mirrors deals with an issue that weighs heavy on its author’s heart, and that issue is the futility of war. It won the Commonwealth Regional Prize for Asia, was short-listed for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature and was long-listed for the Man Asia Prize and the Dublin IMPAC Award. ![]() Island of a Thousand Mirrors has achieved remarkable success for a debut novel. ![]()
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