About the book: year / The novel was shortlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize! One of the best books of the year according to Time magazine. Fans of novels by Vikram Seth, Arundhati Roy, Deepa Annapara will like it. A young Sri Lankan Krishan travels to the north of the country, torn apart by civil war, to attend the funeral of Rani, his grandmother’s nurse. Rani lost two sons in the war and, never recovering from her experience, suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. Was her death an accident, suicide or murder? Simultaneously with the news of Rani's death, Krishan receives a letter from his ex-girlfriend, the Indian activist Anjum, whom he still loves. Krishan's trip is both a geographical journey - to the palm tree-strewn landscape of the north of Sri Lanka, and a psychological one - to the trauma of war and his own past. “Anouk Arudpragasam’s meditative and contemplative text, through the introspection of the protagonist, immerses the reader in the history of the civil war, thereby acquiring the features of a loud political statement.” — Lyudmila Ivanova, editor