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Making sense of the unimaginable, natural disasters, struggling with what can be real, remembering, enduring love, details, grief, survivor‘s guilt, haunting, rebuilding a life. Deraniyagala‘s family killed in 2004 tsunami in Sri Lanka. 2013

P198 “It still seems far-fetched, my story, even to me. Everyone vanishing an instant, me spinning out from that mud, what is this, some kind of myth? Even now I cannot mouth those words ‘They are all dead.‘“

Adding some new countries to #ReadTheWorld2025 in July and August: #NewZealand, #Finland, #Peru, #Pakistan, #SriLanka, #Hungary and #Sweden.

I now have covered 26 countries!

This was interesting. And entertaining.

#BookSpinBingo @TheAromaofBooks

Set in a fictional Nursing Home in Sydney, this novel follows Sri Lankan immigrants Maya and Zakhir, who transformed the home into a sanctuary where “people will be valued.” Decades later, Maya is a resident, while Zakhir‘s disappearance remains unresolved. The flashbacks to war-torn Sri Lanka do complete the book.

Thanks for sending me this Carolyn🤍

#ReadTheWorld2025 #24 #SriLanka
#fictionaltraveler #someplacehot

From at erinreadstheworld on Instagram. I‘m going to post each page for those of you not on instagram. This is the sixth (and last) page of 6. For those of you on Instagram, here‘s the link:

https://www.instagram.com/p/DMuilAfyip4/?img_index=1&igsh=MWxyZDVpZTMyd2hseQ==

Links to books above are tagged below in the comments.

Short but heartbreaking. I can‘t imagine the loss Deraniyagala endured.

#ReadtheWorld2025 #SriLanka

Written from the perspective of a van driver, this books tells the manifold stories of Sri Lanka‘s people: returning exiles, aid workers, entrepreneurs, tourists and many more. The novel beamed me right back to 2012 when I first visited. I could see the places in front of me, smell the smells and remember all the great conversations I had with people about the war, the tsunami, the Chinese and the future. What a perceptive and fantastic read.

Other than a slightly rushed ending this was a phenomenal read and I feel a bit silly it‘s been sitting on the shelf for so long. I loved Sashi, a complex min character growing up as her future is radically changed by the beginning of the Sri Lankan civil war as she walks the complex line in an ever changing set of circumstances . A story about family, loyalty, truth I loved this one

I cannot begin to describe how much I love this book. Both a novel about Anil, a young woman who returns to her birth country of Sri Lanka after years of studying abroad, and a historical document detailing the challenges facing her as a forensic anthropologist as she attempts to unravel truth from the bodies left/scattered from the island‘s years of civil war and forced disappearances.