Shortlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize - A Reader's Review
A young man travels across his home country of Sri Lanka for a funeral, reflecting on his family, romantic relationships and the turbulent national history. Started well but a meandering, plodding plot and style left me unmoved and wondering what he was trying to say. And with a lot of 'telling not showing', it made me think of a person who finds their own inner musings infinitely more interesting than any one else would! I enjoyed learning a bit more about Sri Lanka, which I don't know much about, but even there it read at times more like an earnest essay about the Tamil Tigers than a novel. I'm no expert but it seemed to me the writing lacks maturity - but looking at his picture on the back cover so does its author. Or maybe that's what it's like getting old - even the Booker Prize authors seem young ? - Tanya Carus
SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2021 'Mesmerizing, political, intimate, unafraid - this is a superb novel... that pays such close, intelligent attention to the world we all live in' Sunjeev Sahota, author of the Booker shortlisted The Year of the Runaways It begins with a message: a telephone call informing Krishan that his grandmother's former caregiver has died. As Krishan makes the long journey by train from the Sri Lankan capital into the war-torn Northern Province for the funeral, so he travels into the soul of a country devastated by civil war. A Passage North is a poignant memorial to the dead and an exploration of the unattainable distances between who we are and what we seek. 'Its world is the deeply-layered, rich interior of its protagonist's mind but also contemporary Sri Lanka itself, war-scarred, traumatized ... [It] connects Arudpragasam to the great novelists of the past' Colm Tóibín, bestselling author of Brooklyn
