Ebook287 pages4 hours
A Little Dust on the Eyes
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
()
About this ebook
It is the late 1980s in southern Sri Lanka and Bradley Sirisena’s father is abducted and tortured during the violent struggle for power between the state and local insurgents. Savi, a Sri Lankan research student long settled in the UK, has lost her way in both her thesis and her life, when she receives a wedding invitation from the uncle she would rather ignore. Meanwhile in a coastal fort in Sri Lanka, her cousin Renu continues to try to uncover the secret of Bradley’s father’s disappearance as she works with the wives and widows of the disappeared. Reunited on Savi’s return to Sri Lanka, the cousins are compelled to confront truths that put them into direct conflict in their understanding of both the past and themselves. As the story draws to its inevitable end, a tsunami strikes and carries them all into a future that promises to be even more disturbing than the past. The novel is a haunting evocation of intersecting lives and parallel times that draws upon real historical events. Linking the personal with the political, it carries readers into the shifting landscape of memory where competing versions of the truth coexist. In this richly textured book, myth and magic merge, as the bustle of a seaside city in England gives way to the unreal calm of coastal communities in southern Sri Lanka where thousands disappeared without trace.
Related to A Little Dust on the Eyes
Related ebooks
A Little Dust on the Eyes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Master of Paradise Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The Stories of Eva Luna Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Reversal Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsReversal Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOrigins of the Black Idol Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Actress Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsChildren of Sugarcane Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Finding Soul Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDiamond Heart Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Spirit of Sweetwater Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Cage of Butterflies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Closing Time: A Stonechild and Rouleau Mystery Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Mermaid Variations Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCallings Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe League: Superhuman, #2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDaddy's Girl Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAdrian: The Hampshire Vampires, #1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStorm Country Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Ancient Ones: The Ancient Ones Trilogy, #1 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lord of Shadows Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Swept Away Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Splendor of Silence: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Outlander: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Calor: The Nightingale Trilogy, #1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Perilous Sea Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Glimpses of the Moon Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMatala: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Secret Life of Sofonisba Anguissola Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Players: A sweeping epic of friendship where all the world's a stage Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Literary Fiction For You
Prophet Song: A Novel (Booker Prize Winner) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Catch-22: 50th Anniversary Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Confederacy of Dunces Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Man Called Ove: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Covenant of Water (Oprah's Book Club) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Leave the World Behind: A Read with Jenna Pick Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5All the Ugly and Wonderful Things: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pride and Prejudice: Bestsellers and famous Books Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Flowers for Algernon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Queen's Gambit Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Master & Margarita Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Piranesi Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tender Is the Flesh Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Silmarillion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Little Birds: Erotica Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Life of Pi: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cloud Cuckoo Land: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Farewell to Arms Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Demon Copperhead: A Pulitzer Prize Winner Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sympathizer: A Novel (Pulitzer Prize for Fiction) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Salvage the Bones: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Anna Karenina: Bestsellers and famous Books Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Handmaid's Tale Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Annihilation: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5East of Eden Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Only Woman in the Room: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Old Man and the Sea: The Hemingway Library Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for A Little Dust on the Eyes
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
2 ratings1 review
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I have no idea why it's called what it is, and, just to get this out of the way too, it has one other irritating detail which is that Savi, the central character, refers to "Brighthelm" all the time. If she's meant to be pretentious, then why? Apart from that, it's excellent, brave and beautiful. And when you've finished it, you want to nip back to the beginning and re-read the italicised opening.I'd found it quite annoying to begin with, Savi particularly, but it suddenly improved when her English husband puts her right about what she's seeing in Sri Lanka - more sinister, if she'd only look. From about halfway through - a chapter called "The Leper King", it takes flight. Savi's cousin Renu, seeking truth, explores the issue of story-telling, Savi's father explains Antigone with terrific succinctness from a lawyer's, and loving father's, perspective and we get a bird's eye view of Bradley's extraordinary heartbreaking story wrapped up in the background of the disappearances during the brutal civil war.The cocky and the innocent are swept away together in that leveller that was the tsunami, and Bradley's story is finished seven years later. Story-telling is silenced though, and so for me it was deeply resonant of 1983 when right from the start of the war, we couldn't find out what was happening until we got back to England. The rehab centre, where work is stymied too because of what can and can't be said, resonates bitterly, with the awful euphemisms and, powerfully, the morphing of language of innocence into meanings of violence, torture and abduction.Jus edit the "Brighthelm" nonsense - so simply done - and I'd be able to recommend it to people wholeheartedly.
Book preview
A Little Dust on the Eyes - Minoli Salgado
N1^ book_preview_excerpt.html |Ƒw3ޝݛDzV;wEH 𱩋
<>Ǿd9_{s#}M9y2Eya_/~9>_~Q)}_W??}?w 2i7?9>x|ė](3,C+~^Sw:4[8RyNq:4a8b+P{x(OG%kjNS҆܄)/?&؝n{[=
'[)̷w7-<trKsR{SkC枒W_68'L4X=jeL_yXfh oESbHihtg4*1.Jv}v1/Lдο%\L{(!lKm!ߥe:S?&P钫?;&~c;KPԔ>PGE94fpņb<_
x_aԹK7" ºvzN6sRR1(K'[:{`apTN{JZ95ĒNNa
\Z@0a
0-YAG(_
S`p%zlIu={jW]VA=hZ`dQF%/s/wH)߹R3؝l*Qn%208RCim~J̙5AakL%Ρ59/{C