#anuk arudpragasam

[litandroses]

Very late post but here are my favorite reads of 2024 🫶

(* = reread)

[sofsversion]

the wonderful honey ( @honeyedlashton ) tagged me in this and i love talking about myself every once in a while

last song: tejano blue by cigarettes after sex

currently watching: one day (the movie version bc the show broke me and i want to know if the movie is just as upsetting)

currently reading: the story of a brief marriage by anuk arudpragasam and love and and other lies by lang leav which i’m reading with a friend

current favourites: making soup (especially tomato soup!!) and watching sunsets

tagging @faithfromanewperspective @hideitaway @icelily13 and anyone who wants to do it! (no pressure ofc!)

[timelesslords]

I’ve been meaning to make a post like this for a while, so here are some fiction anti-colonial/anti-apartheid/anti-genocide books that I read for the cultural studies concentration of my literature degree, that I think are super readable/accessible and don’t see recommended often:

1. The Association of Small Bombs by Karan Mahajan

A novel about a boy who was a victim of a terrorist attack as a child and how he becomes radicalized by the same terrorist group that killed his friends as a young adult.

Additional/background reading:

2. The Story of a Brief Marriage by Anuk Arudpragasam

a 24 hour snapshot of the last few weeks of the Sri Lankan civil war where the Sri Lankan goverment bombed a no fire zone, killing as many as 70,000 civilians, the vast majority of whom belonged to the Tamil ethnic minority. (this book is extremely graphic but very worth reading imo)

Background/additional reading:

3. White Teeth by Zadie Smith

A post-colonial novel spanning several decades centering on two WWII veterans living in Britain; one a white Englishman, one a Bangladeshi immigrant.

additional/background reading:

4. An Imperfect Blessing by Nadia Davis

A novel about the Indian community in South Africa, told primarily through the lens of a teenage girl and taking place during the dissolution of the apartheid state.

background/additional reading:

5. Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie

A modern retelling of Antigone set in post-9/11 Britain and Pakistan.

additional/background reading:

[smokefalls]

Hi can u recommend me some of the best writing you have come across in a book. I love your quotes thank uu!

Hi there,

Absolutely no need to thank me for anything, especially considering that all of these lines and passages belong to their respective authors. I'm just sharing ones that stood out to me, that's all!

Regarding the best writing I've come across, this is incredibly subjective. Here are some books that came to mind though:

Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin

Dubliners by James Joyce

A Minor Chorus by Billy-Ray Belcourt

Sula by Toni Morrison

North by Seamus Heaney

A Little Devil in America by Hanif Abdurraqib

Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments by Saidiya Hartman

In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi

A Passage North by Anuk Arudpragasam

Butter Honey Pig Bread by Francesca Ekwuyasi

Whale by Cheon Myeong-kwan (tr. Chi-Young Kim)

Die Sonette an Orpheus by Rainer Maria Rilke (I'm not sure about the best translation for these poems, since I didn't love the one I read, but reading anything in their original language is always the best experience.)

I'm very likely missing other titles, but this should be enough for now—

[somerabbitholes]

do you ever journal in your mother tongue instead of english? would love to hear ur thoughts on this

I do. A simple fact of being raised multilingual the way Indians of my generation are is that some subjects and some conversations only make sense in your mother tongue, and some only in English. I think Anuk Arudpragasam spoke about this seemingly very natural bifurcation of language and hence knowledge and feeling in one of his interviews (I think it's this?).

So my choice of language when I journal is most times a reflection of this. But also, lately, it has been a conscious attempt to get myself to think about and articulate things I've subconsciously reserved for English in Marathi (and to a lesser extent, Hindi).

[kummatty]

hello. I think you have a great blog and amazing tastes and I was wondering if you had any book recommendations? fiction or non-fiction, though I tend to read more fiction. I'm afraid I do not read enough books that were written outside North America/Europe and I would love to change that. anyway, sorry for the disturbance, I hope you are well <3

hi dear anon, i hope you're well too <3 im so sorry this has been sitting in my inbox forever! i hope you see it. thank u for ur kind words, i'm happy to share some recs! they'll be a mix of authors from north america/europe as well as outside those regions, and most will be writers of color bc that's who I tend to look for and read, i also gravitate towards fiction but ill try to do both. * = i've read it and would definitely recommend, and the rest are on my tbr that ive heard good things about and/or really want to get to myself.

I would also look out for presses that publish specifically translations and non-Western stories - two lines press, europa, transit books, open books, greywolf press - and you can look to who they're interacting w as well to expand your search for these kinds of books. happy reading <3

fiction:

vagabonds! by eloghosa osunde*

annie john by jamaica kincaid*

if an egyptian cannot speak english by noor naga*

the remainder by alia trabucco zerán, trans. sophie hughes*

sula by toni morrison*

scattered all over the earth by yoko tawada, trans. margaret mitsutani*

the thirty names of night by zeyn joukhader*

a passage north by anuk arudpragasam*

the hour of the star by clarice lispector*

an unkindness of ghosts by rivers solomon*

the umbrella country by bino a. realuyo*

the unpassing by chia-chia lin*

aquarium by david vann*

bright by duanwad pimwana, trans. mui pooposakul

hostages of memory by haitham hussein, trans. jona fras

mother of 1084 by mahasweta devi, trans. samik bandyopadhyay

on a woman's madness by astrid h. roemer, trans. lucy scott

the wild hunt by emma seckel

ornamental by juan cárdenas, trans. lizzie davis

i stared at the night of the city by bakhtiyar ali, trans. kareem abdulrahman*

men in the sun, and other palestinian stories by ghassan kanafani (various translators)*

funny boy by shyam selvadurai

violets by kyung-sook shin, trans. anton hur

afterparties by anthony veasna so

nonfiction:

a map to the door of no return by dionne brand*

out of the sun: on race and storytelling by esi edugyan*

uncommon measure: a journey through music, performance, and the science of time by natalie hodges*

from a native daughter: colonialism and sovereignty in hawai'i by haunani-kay trask

braiding sweetgrass: indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge, and the teachings of plants by robin wall kimmerer

care work: dreaming disability justice by leah lakshmi piepzina-samarasinha

don't forget us here: lost and found at guantanamo by mansoor adayfi

the jakarta method: washington's anticommunist crusade and the mass murder program that shaped our world by vincent bevins

a still life: a memoir by josie george

[mlm-blues]

26, 24, and 18 for the "get to know you" ask games!

18: do you like reading? if yes what's your favourite book?

yes!!!! very recently i got back into reading (because i got glasses and have found ways to accomodate my visual processing disorder so it's actually fun to read words now!). favourite books at the moment i think are 'a passage north' by anuk arudpragasam and 'the red-haired woman' by orhan pamuk 😸

24: do you have any fears?

yuppp. heights. the dark. ants. being perceived by other people irl

26: how many pictures you have on your phone?

13k, but i think it should be more because i switched phones recently and theres a whole period from september 2021-may 2023 where i have not got any photos D: so many pics of my dog lost to the void :(

[arwainian]

Reading This Week 2024 #6-8

sits here. i have been behind on this.... once again... i think i just have to accept that i do these when i do these.

Finished Week 6 (Feb 4-10):

Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift (skimmed/read the spark notes for class discussion, won't be reading more)

Undoing Gender by Judith Butler (read Chapter 6 "Longing for Recognition", currently won't be reading more)

The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K. Le Guin, narrated by Rob Inglis (started the same week, audio book was lots of fun)

i love Tenar...... i think it's really cool that the way the Earthsea books are working is that even tho Ged is a reocurring character, we get a new child perspective for each one

Orange, Vol. 4 by Ichigo Takano, translated by Amber Tamosaitis (started same week)

truly TRULY the love triangle/rivals in this are so primed to be read polyamorously it had driven me crazy. just form a triad, you all like each other

about 10 other smaller things (articles, short stories, excerpts) that i shall not be naming individually bc this post is already too long

Finished Week 7 (Feb 11-17):

Burnt Shadows by Kamila Shamsie (started in Week 6)

this book flips is like reading a multigenerational family drama with each section involving the slowly growing tension of knowing what horrific historical event/conditions they are about to live through

Venus by Susan-Lori Parks (started same week)

The Way of the House Husband by Kousuke Oono, translated by Amanda Haley (started same week)

“Experiential Gender” in Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity by Julia Serano

“Black (W)holes and The Geometry of Black Female Sexuality” by Evelynn Hammonds

"Unsexed: A Zero Concept for Gender Studies" by Kath Weston

"Of Catamites and Kings: Reflections on Butch, Gender, and Boundaries" by Gayle Rubin (these four i read for a class that i lead the discussion four so while they fall under the category of articles i'm not mentioning right now, i felt they should be included for that reason)

a shit ton of student papers

6 smaller things (articles and abandoned books that i'm skipping for same reason as above)

Finished Week 8 (Feb 18-24):

Story of a Brief Marriage by Anuk Arudpragasam (started same week)

very in-depth descriptions of bowel movements in this

Orange, Vol. 5 by Ichigo Takano, translated by Amber Tamosaitis (started same week)

so cute! once again i am advocating for them to just form a poly triad

He Who Drowned the World by Shelley Parker-Chan (started ages and ages ago...)

you've already seen my frantic reblog spam about this. i'm glad i finally finished reading this. the quarter 3 of it was kind a low point but i think it really captured me again by the end (however, i think the like... FINAL two pages are really scream "remember! that this is technically inspired by some real history!" in a way i found unneccesary and kinda too me out of the satisfaction of the end). i think the ending worked for me because Ma was really underused (i know it would have made the book kinda bloated but i would have loved a chapter or two of her perspective holding down the fort and dealing with internal politics while Zhu was away doing war things....), so her role in the finale was what really solidified it for me. this book drove me crazy in a great way, i think so many people should read She Who Became the Sun and then this sequel

Witch Hat Atelier, Vol. 11 by Kamome Shirahama, translated by Stephen Kohler (started same week)

the panelling in this manga is simply so fucking good. read this. its so cute

Orange, Vol. 6: Future by Ichigo Takano, translated by Amber Tamosaitis (started same week)

i don't think this volume was necessary lol... i did not need to know how Suwa and Naho got together in the future where Kakeru died, it was better as implications

Ongoing Reads:

Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree (read another chapter)

i am so sorry to my girlfriend who has to deal with me complaining about this book i am reading to her after every chapter... i am glad she is enjoying it regardless

The Farther Shore by Ursula K. Le Guin, narrated by Rob Inglis (about halfway through)

The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien (basically read the preface material so far)

[theliteraturefreak]

What was the point of trying to account for all the time that had passed like a river between them, gone and impossible to retrieve, what was the point when all that writing could accom- plish was to remind them how much they'd once shared, when the only way to respect what had existed between them was to remain apart, to acknowledge that no words could bridge the vast distance between them?

Anuk Arudpragasam | A Passage North

[mmepastel]

Cette chronique va sûrement être confuse.

Et pourtant ce roman est limpide, d’une beauté grave et intemporelle.

Mais le fait est que je ne connaissais quasiment rien du Sri Lanka dont il est question puisque le jeune romancier est originaire de ce pays complexe, récemment ravagé par une guerre civile meurtrière.

En fait, c’est le style qui m’a happée et envoûtée. J’ai lu les premières pages et j’étais cuite. C’est étrange car j’ai ressenti de l’admiration mais aussi une forme de surprise bête : quoi ? Dans l’Asie profonde on peut écrire comme Proust ? Terrible constat de ma naïveté occidentale, de mon autocentrisme suffisant. On est si ignorant du lointain. J’ai en effet, à ma plus grande honte, été surprise de la qualité de pensée et d’écriture de ce jeune homme sri lankais, uniquement par ignorance.

Son livre est somptueux. Ne vous fiez pas au résumé rébarbatif de l’éditeur. Le roman a une beauté spirituelle et sensible qui transcendent toute narration. Oui, il s’agit d’une histoire de deuils. Deuil de la jeunesse, deuil de milliers de sri lankais lors de la guerre civile (dont les motifs profonds m’échappent), deuil de Rani, une vieille dame traumatisée par le deuil de ses deux fils et qui s’était occupée de la grand-mère quasi sénile de Krishan, le narrateur. Deuil d’un amour aussi, tumultueux et incandescent, de Krishan et de Anjum.

Krishan, au fond, souffre du symptôme du survivant. Il a survécu à la guerre civile, il en était même assez éloigné, parfois géographiquement. Faisant des études en Inde ou vivant ses débuts amoureux, il n’avait qu’internet pour connaître ce qui se passait au nord de l’île, des violences ignobles des cinghalais qui décimaient son peuple, les Tamouls. Il se sentait coupable d’être ainsi épargné. A travers la figure de Rani, vieille dame croisée dans un hôpital psychiatrique recrutée pour s’occuper de sa grand-mère vieillissante, il fait la rencontre réelle de la souffrance concrète. Or celle-ci meurt -étrangement- à son tour, le voilà en route pour ses obsèques, au nord du pays, là où les conflits ont été les plus sévères. En allant sur ces lieux, solitaire, il revoit son passé récent, sa passion interrompue pour Anjun, activiste, et ses rêves. Dans une prose mesurée et infiniment subtile, Anuk Arudpragasam fait le récit de sa pensée, complexe et tortueuse, qui revoit les événements du passé à l’aune de ce décès inattendu et de ces fins non souhaitées. Il revisite son rapport au mythe bouddhiste, et réfléchit avec philosophie à la formation de sa personnalité et de sa sensibilité. Il raconte son amour pour la belle et indépendante Anjum, son affection impuissante pour Rani, sa culpabilité permanente.

La faculté de l’auteur pour être sensible, subtil, profond, pour embrasser cas individuel et universalité m’a évoqué Proust. Il me semble qu’il y a quelque chose de commun dans la grandeur du livre, dans sa capacité à parler à n’importe quel humain doué du pouvoir d’introspection. Son voyage vers le nord (en train - je me souviens avec émotion des pages de Proust sur les voyages en train) est tout autant géographique (retour vers le coeur du conflit) qu’intérieur. Une maturation accélérée en somme ; et les funérailles de Rani, au bout du voyage, prennent l’allure d’expiation au regard d’un conflit auquel il lui semble avoir injustement échappé. Être là pour Rani, c’est être là pour toutes les victimes tamoules, c’est effectuer son devoir de mémoire, intimement et collectivement.

Un très grand livre.

[eyecache]

“these are maps of the submerged ancient land of kumari kandam or kumari nadu, made by early 20th century tamil cartographers who believed that the indian subcontinent was once part of a much larger landmass that stretched from madagascar to australasia (whose inhabitants, they believed, were closely related to tamils). they pointed to evidence in sangam literature of an ancient tamil homeland that was submerged in a great deluge and hypothesized that this landmass, kumari kandam, was the ancient homeland. it was when kumari kandam sank, they believed, that tamils moved to the lands they now occupy and further afield, eventually spreading across the entire world. these cartographers didn’t know that half of the tamil population in the island of sri lanka would soon be forced to flee, nor did they envision that sri lanka would soon be submerged by the ocean in the coming deluge of our times, which it surely will. but tamil people, they believed, were always already a diaspora, and they were always already fleeing from catastrophic loss. (maps from sumathi ramaswamy’s book the lost land of lemuria)” 

Originally posted by @sirukavi on Instagram.

[litandroses]

Favorite reads of the year so far <3

[nprbooks]

Anuk Arudpragasam revisits Sri Lanka's civil war -- the backdrop for his first novel, The Story of a Brief Marriage -- in his new A Passage North. But this time, instead of examining lives in the midst of war, Arudpragasam is looking at how people survive in war's aftermath. Critic Jenny Bhatt calls the book a "tender elegy" for lives lost -- check out her full review here.

-- Petra

[dk-thrive]

Suddenly the small details that are glossed over in your usual accounting of life took on an almost cosmic significance

Suddenly the small details that are glossed over in your usual accounting of life took on an almost cosmic significance, as though your fate could be determined by whether or not you remembered to draw water before it became dark, by whether you hurried to catch the bus or decided to take your time, by whether or not you said yes or no to any of the countless trivial decisions that come only in retrospect, once the event has occurred and nothing can be changed, to take on greater significance.

— Anuk Arudpragasam, A Passage North: A Novel (Hogarth (July 13, 2021)

[smokefalls]

Hi what are the books that blew your mind with it's beautiful language?

Hi there,

Here are some works of fiction that immediately come to mind with language that took my breath away (and in no particular order):

Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin

Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson

Butter Honey Pig Bread by Francesca Ekwuyasi

A Passage North by Anuk Arudpragasam

A Minor Chorus by Billy-Ray Belcourt

Jazz by Toni Morrison

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong (Note: I admit that I had somewhat lukewarm feelings about this novel when I first read it, but the language really stood out to me.)

And here are some memoirs and essay collections that had beautiful language (and, again, in no particular order):

Things I Have Withheld by Kei Miller

The Magical Language of Others by E.J. Koh

Heart Berries by Terese Marie Mailhot

How to Write an Autobiographical Novel by Alexander Chee

In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

Aftershocks by Nadia Owusu

Falling Back in Love with Being Human by Kai Cheng Thom

I don't think I can compile a list of poetry collections, because I genuinely would not know where to begin, haha. Apologies for that—

Of course, this is all entirely subjective. I know everyone has their preferences, but I hope even one of these titles is of interest to you.

[somerabbitholes]

Hello! Could you recommend some fics from travel literature? My reach only extends to Dalrymple's In Xanadu as of yet. And I suspect a growing love for this genre. Also, would love to know your thoughts on this genre. 🌼🍁

Here you go! It's a mix of fiction and nonfiction, and anything containing travel qualifies even though it might not intentionally be travel writing

Non-fiction

The Old Ways by Robert Macfarlane: the authors follows ancient routes, hollows and pathways in Britain; is generally about the communal nature of walking.

Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Theroux: about journeys through Asia on railways. Theroux is among my favourite travel writers, also because he almost exclusively travels by and writes about trains. Do check out his The Old Patagonian Express

Nanologues by Vanessa Able (or alternatively, Never Mind the Bullocks): a travelogue of a woman who drove through India in a Tata Nano. It's really well done. And if you'd like the immersive experience, she also ran a blog while she was driving.

Round Ireland with a Fridge by Tony Hawks: it's exactly what it sounds like. The author loses a bet, and consequently carries a small fridge around Ireland. It's really really funny and warm and kind and great holiday reading

On Travel by Charles Dickens: this is a few essays about the places he visited, the process of travel, and at times quite like a travel diary

Fiction

Outline trilogy by Rachel Cusk: all three books follow a narrator through about a decade or so of her life; a bulk of the story happens when she's travelling, and her state of always passing through does interesting things to the narrative

On the Road by Jack Kerouac: I love Kerouac, and this is the first of his books that I read. It's his journey through and to the West Coast in the US. That said, it is a messy book and it does test your patience

Flights by Olga Tokarczuk: this is about travel, mobility, the body and experience. It's a whole bunch of short essays, notes, some stories, all of whom come together to be about travel and what movement means now

A Passage North by Anuk Arudpragasam: follows the narrator who is on a journey home after he's received some distressing news. His life sort of unspools while he's travelling, and through that, it is about the afterlife of the Sri Lankan civil war, memory and what it means for his relationships

I hope this helps!