Love Marriage - V. V. Ganeshananthan

A young woman tells the story of her "globe-scattered Sri Lankan family" through a collage of fragmentary narratives which focus on 'Marriage' and the different experiences her ancestors have had of it. As her reasons for needing to explore her (Tamil) family's history become clear, we are drawn into the story of the "unofficial war" in which "no one would be right, but ... some would be more wrong" and the terrible impact it has had on her family's lives. Coming to this as someone with practically no knowledge of Sri Lankan history or politics (shamefully, I had thought the conflict was much more of a historical one than it emerges here), I found the subject matter fascinating and shocking. I was particularly interested in how the conflict continues to influence and disrupt the lives of emigrants, and a note in the acknowledgements section about preserving the anonymity of those who helped with the research brought the reality of the situation home to me. I was also interested to read a piece by the author in which she discusses the difficulty of being perceived as the spokesperson for a whole community's view of an under-reported conflict.