First published 2017
Dinesh moves through a makeshift medical camp in the Sri Lankan jungle, caring for wounded fighters while bombs fall each night. The young man has grown numb to the explosions that once terrified him. He wanders aimlessly between his duties, haunted by memories of his murdered mother whose face he can no longer recall. When an older man approaches him with an unusual request, asking Dinesh to marry his daughter Ganga, Dinesh agrees. The man hopes Dinesh will protect Ganga when the inevitable happens. Ganga is serious and thoughtful, now suddenly his wife. The two strangers must navigate their unexpected intimacy and try to bridge the distance between them. They have little time to understand each other before the war tears them apart again. In this single day, two people attempt to create something meaningful amid destruction.
Genres: literary-fiction, war, contemporary, family-drama
Vibes: atmospheric, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: forced-proximity, found-family
Setting: Sri Lanka, Jungle
Period: Contemporary
224 pages · Hardcover · Hanser Berlin
Content warnings: violence, war