A Passage North

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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