When Memory Dies

"Haunting, with an immense tenderness . . . Unforgettable" JOHN BERGER

"I'm recommending When Memory Dies to everyone" ARTHUR C. CLARKE

"Profoundly moving" Evening Standard

"A brilliant and moving first novel" Times Literary Supplement

A powerful three-generational saga of a Sri Lankan family's search for coherence and continuity in a country broken by colonial occupation and riven by ethnic wars.

Through the viewpoints of three generations of a Sri Lankan family (taking the reader from 1920 through the 1980s), Sivanandan explores a culture destroyed first by colonization, then through the ethnic divisions that are released when the country achieves independence.

The family, which lives at a level of poverty that makes survival a constant struggle, must also balance love for one another with a deep love of their homeland. Without bending to romanticism or proselytization, the author evokes a compelling and very human story of a lost country. It is a vision as beautifully told as it is unrelenting in its devotion to truth. In the process, the work also supplies a rich historic background to the often underreported news accounts of the massacres and upheavals in Sri Lanka.

Winner of the Sagittarius Prize Shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize**

“"This rich novel, peopled with unforgettable heroines and heroes, will haunt the reader's mind."”

"Haunting, with an immense tenderness. The extraordinary poetic tact of this book makes it unforgettable." - John Berger, Guardian"A brilliant and moving first novel" - Times Literary Supplement"This rich novel, peopled with unforgettable heroines and heroes, will haunt the reader's mind - David Rose, Observer

A. (AMBALAVANER) SIVANANDAN was born in 1923 and came to Britain from Sri Lanka in the wake of the race riots of 1958 - and walked straight into the riots of Notting Hill. Since then he wrote and lectured extensively on Black and Third World issues and published two collections of essays, A Different Hunger and Communities of Resistance. His novel When Memory Dies (1997) was winner of the 1998 Commonwealth Writers' Prize in the Best First Book category. Sivanandan was founder editor of the journal Race & Class and director of the Institute of Race Relations in London. He died in 2018.

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