This is a beguiling tale of three women swept up in the turbulence of an islands history and whose fate is woven intricately together in war, migration, love, exile and belonging. A few months after the 1983 riots, a Sinhalese family leaves Sri Lanka for America. The two children, Yasodhara and Lanka adapt to their new life quickly but memories of their childhood on a tropical island in the middle of the Indian Ocean are seared into their souls. Meanwhile, Saraswathi lives in the middle of the war torn country struggling to be a teenager in a land that is anything but normal. Covering three quarters of a century of Sri Lankas past, this beautifully written novel combines harsh reality, love and tenderness with astonishing insight.
