V. V. Ganeshanathan

An evening of fiction. Suri reads from his second novel, The Age of Shiva (W.W. Norton, 2008) and Ganeshananthan reads from her debut, Love Marriage (Random House, 2008). $5 suggested donation

Harvard Book Store and Harvard's Kennedy School of Government are pleased to welcome award-winning writer PREETA SAMARASAN and Atlantic Monthly and Wall Street Journal contributor V. V. GANESHANANTHAN to read from their debut novels, followed by a conversation about political identity in literature.

In ... (more)Preeta Samarasan's Evening Is the Whole Day, when the family's rubber-plantation servant girl is dismissed for unnamed crimes, it is only the latest in a series of precipitous losses that have shaken six-year-old Aasha's life. In the space of several weeks, her grandmother died under mysterious circumstances and her older sister, Uma, left for Columbia University, gone forever. Circling through years of family history to arrive at the moment of Uma's departure—stranding her worshipful younger sister in a family, and a country, slowly going to pieces—Evening Is the Whole Day illuminates one Indian immigrant family's layers of secrets and lies, while exposing the complex underbelly of Malaysia itself.

V. V. Ganeshananthan tells the story of how Yalini, the daughter of Sri Lankan immigrants who left their collapsing country and married in America, finds herself caught between the history of her ancestors and her own modern world. But 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. While Kumaran's loved ones gather around him to say goodbye, Yalini traces her family's roots—and the conflicts facing them as ethnic Tamils—through a series of marriages. Now, as Kumaran's death and his daughter's politically motivated nuptials edge closer, in the tradition of her family, Yalini too must decide where she stands.

For eight years running, Pete's has earned a reputation as Brooklyn's premier reading series, where today's literary icons and tomorrow's stars take the stage regularly.

"In this debut novel, the daughter of Sri Lankan immigrants who left their collapsing country and married in America, Yalini finds herself caught between the traditions of her ancestors and the lure of her own modern world. But when she is summoned to Toronto to help care for her dying uncle, Kumaran, ... (more)a former member of the militant Tamil Tigers, Yalini is forced to see that violence is not a relic of the Sri Lankan past, but very much a part of her Western present." (booksite.com)

The Desi Lit book group hosts a discussion with V.V. Ganeshananthan, author of Love Marriage.