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The Story of a Brief Marriage
Two and a half decades into a devastating civil war, Sri Lanka�s Tamil minority is pushed inexorably towards the coast by the advancing army. Amongst the evacuees is Dinesh, whose world has contracted to a makeshift camp where time is measured by the shells that fall around him like clockwork. Alienated from family, home, language and body, he exists in a state of mute acceptance, numb to the violence around him, till he is approached one morning by an old man who makes an unexpected proposal - That Dinesh marry his daughter, Ganga. Marriage, in this world, is an attempt at safety, like the beached fishing boat under which Dinesh huddles during the bombings. As a couple, they would be less likely to be conscripted to fight for the rebels and less likely to be abused in the case of an army victory. Thrust into this situation of strange intimacy and dependence, Dinesh and Ganga try to come to terms with everything that has happened, hesitantly attempting to awaken to themselves and to one another before the war closes over them once more. About the Author - Anuk Arudpragasam is from Colombo, Sri Lanka and for the time being lives between Colombo and New York, where he is completing a dissertation in philosophy at Columbia University. The Story of a Brief Marriage is his first novel and it will be translated into French, German, Dutch and Italian. He writes in English and Tamil.