The first five or so pages of this book are as difficult to get through as the opening of just about any book I have ever read. And when I wrote this novel, part of what I wanted to do was to bring myself closer to them or to bring them closer to me, to understand that distance.
So he turned these real stories into fiction.ĪRUDPRAGASAM: And the prevailing sense I had was of, you know, how far these humans who share my language and share my history - how far they had moved away from ordinary life or how much distance was now there between us. SHAPIRO: Writing a nonfiction account of the war felt too invasive, like he would be ripping off a shroud of privacy or trying to own other people's stories. But if somebody made it seem like they wanted to talk about it, then I would talk about it, and I would listen to what they had to say. You know, and I would never actually ask somebody what happened to them because, you know, it's such a traumatic experience obviously. Then he went in person.ĪRUDPRAGASAM: And then finally I found myself in the northeast for the first time in the part of the country where the war occurred, walking on the same earth on which, you know, so many people had died and coming into contact with people who had survived.
He started with videos and testimonials on the internet from Sri Lankan displaced persons camps. But he kept wanting to learn more about the people who were directly affected by the civil war. He grew up with a life of privilege in Colombo, Sri Lanka's capital. SHAPIRO: That's the author Anuk Arudpragasam.
Raising their two front legs up in front of their faces, they would wrap their little hands together silently as if in fervent prayer, and only after several seconds of prostrating like this would they put their lips down reverently to the skin. In this passage, the author describes flies swarming over patients at a makeshift clinic.ĪNUK ARUDPRAGASAM: (Reading) They would fold back their wings so respectfully when they landed, bending their four back legs, lowering their bodies and bowing down their heads. Despite the horrors of that war, the writing in this book feels poetic. And it's intimate, taking place over the course of a single day at a displaced persons camp during Sri Lanka's civil war. "The Story Of A Brief Marriage" is a small book, fewer than 200 pages.
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