BOOKS: V.V. Ganeshananthan's "Love Marriage"

UPDATE: Join us for a live SAJA webcast, Friday, April 25, 2008, from 10:30-11:30 a.m. New York time: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/saja/2008/04/25/AUTHOR-CHAT-VV-Ganeshananthan

Journalist and SAJA VP V.V. Ganeshananthan's debut novel hits bookstores next week. "Love Marriage" is one of the first American novels to deal with Sri Lanka and the civil war that has devastated the island. From the press release below:

Sri Lanka, a paradisal gem on the Indian Ocean, has been plagued by over 25 years of bloody warfare between minority Tamil separatists and the majority Sinhalese government, and was ravaged by the 2004 tsunami. Yet Sri Lanka garners little attention on the international stage, despite the fascinating complexities of its population—Tamils, Muslims, Burghers, and Sinhalese all intermingled on this tropical island—and its struggles with human rights violations by both militant groups and the government.

One of the first-ever novels to deal with Sri Lanka and its ongoing war, V.V. Ganeshananthan’s LOVE MARRIAGE (Random House Paperback Original; Publication Date: April 8, 2008) examines decades of families suffering from this war and displacement.

For review copies or interview requests, please contact Jynne Martin in Random House publicity: jymartin[at]randomhouse.com. Tell her SAJA sent you - please note she will only be able to respond to journalists.

And be sure to note the back-of-the-book extras, including a conversation between Ganeshananthan and "Maximum City" author Suketu Mehta.

Details of her book tour, testimonials and more below and at Vasugi.com. Post your comments below.

Earlier on SAJAforum: V.V. Ganeshananthan in Esquire

A LYRICAL, POLITICAL & PROVOCATIVE DEBUT NOVEL SPANNING DECADES OF WAR IN SRI LANKA
FROM AN ACCOMPLISHED YOUNG JOURNALIST

ABOUT THE BOOK
The daughter of Sri Lankan immigrants who left their collapsing country and married in America, Yalini finds herself caught between the history of her ancestors and her own modern world. When she is summoned to Toronto to help care for her dying uncle, Kumaran, a former member of the militant Tamil Tigers, she is forced to see that violence is not a relic of the Sri Lankan past, but very much a part of her Western present.

ADVANCE PRAISE 
"A complex, moving evocation of love and war — two ideas which overlap more often, and more dramatically, than we often care to recognize. Love Marriage is an impressive debut." —Daniel Alarcon, PEN/Hemingway finalist for War by Candlelight, author of Lost City Radio, one of Granta’s Best Young American Novelists

"In her clear-eyed first novel, V.V. Ganeshananthan has given us a riveting picture of a Sri Lanka at odds with itself, both at home and abroad, and of the intersections of love and war that shape us all. A debut of incredible passion and wisdom." —Rebecca Johns, PEN/Hemingway finalist for Icebergs

"Love Marriage is a beautiful first novel that explores the secrets of a country's history and a family's past. With tenderness and wisdom, V.V. Ganeshananthan presents a world both mysterious and familiar to readers. This intricately woven tale, with its universal themes of love and estrangement, presents an exciting new voice in American literature." —Yiyun Li, one of Granta's Best Young American Novelists and author of A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, winner of the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, the PEN/Hemingway Award, and the Guardian First Book Award

LOVE MARRIAGE is V.V. Ganeshananthan’s first novel, but she is already an accomplished and credentialed writer: she studied fiction writing at Harvard with Jamaica Kincaid, and at Iowa with Frank Conroy, Ethan Canin and Elizabeth McCracken; her journalism has appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The Wall Street Journal and The American Prospect Online, among others.

For more about the author and the book, visit www.vasugi.com

READINGS:
V.V. Ganeshananthan will read in 10 American cities, Toronto, and at the Torino Book Festival in Italy. For a full reading schedule, see www.vasugi.com/booktour (updated regularly).

LOVE MARRIAGE will be published internationally by Random House (Canada), Garzanti (Italy), JC Lattes (France), Weidenfeld & Nicholson (U.K. and associated territories), Rao (Romania) and Random House (Germany).

Comments

[Professor emeritus Shelton Gunaratne]

I listened to your interview on SAJA radio. i wanted to know more about your novel "Love Marriage."

Do you feel your novel has an authentic Sri Lankan backdrop considering that you were born and raised in the United States?

SHELTON GUNRATNE professor emeritus
MInnesota Sate University
Moorhead, MN 56563

[Hasna]

I'm Meera's friend in Sri Lanka. She gifted your book to me.Thanks.

It was an eye opener. I too belong to a minority. Therefroe I can relate to the book easily.

Hasna