Nathacha Appanah

Although this is a short book, it packs quite a punch and is very well-written. It’s the story of a friendship between a young Mauritian boy and a Jewish boy from Prague who is part of a group of emigrants detained in Mauritius. The book is an engaging read and the author wonderfully develops a sense of place. She opens with Raj, the narrator, looking back at his life and remembering his friendship with David. I’ve read a number of books with a past story and present story, and usually show more the past story tends to be more compelling. However, here the modern bits are woven in well and only provide glimpses of Raj’s life – so I was actually a bit curious about his future, instead of being annoyed that the author has filler sections.

The first few chapters vividly recreate Raj’s family life at the Mapou cane fields. It’s a very poor life, the family has almost nothing, and their father is violent at times, but Raj has his two brothers. His relationship with his brothers affects him for the rest of the book and provides several motivations, so it is fairly important. Appanah develops the relationship very well, despite only having a few scenes and chapters to do so. The friendship between Raj and David works well, as at first it is tentative and mainly driven by Raj’s slight obsession, although there are some coincidences there. The setting – first at Mapou, then at the family’s isolated forest house (where they move when Raj’s father gets a job as a prison guard) – is also well-written. Descriptions of the parched desert of Mapou, followed by torrential rains, and Raj’s relationship with the forest at their new home are memorably done. Raj’s view of his parents is a little one dimensional – his father is a violent bully, who is also a cringing coward in front of his bosses, while his mother is loving and hardworking, supports his relationship with David, and is an expert at making herbal concoctions, to the point of being almost magic. But these are minor quibbles in an affecting and vividly written book. show less

We very rarely notice changes within ourselves at the time, we perceive them later, in the light of events and our reactions to them, but, sitting there as I did, motionless in the dark, I sensed it, a change in myself, I felt as if I were getting bigger, growing, like the trees around me, and it seemed to me that the exhalation of the green, dark forest had something to do with it.

This gorgeous and deeply touching novel is set on the island nation of Mauritius off the coast of east Africa, show more which is isolated from the horrors of World War II but not from the harshness of life under British colonial rule. It is narrated by Raj, a nine year old boy whose family was among the thousands of Indians that were brought to the island decades before to work in its sugar cane fields for subsistence wages. After a tragic accident he and his parents have moved to a safer town, where his father finds work in a prison that supposedly houses hardened convicts. Raj is a sickly and stick thin boy, who is loved dearly by his mother but is not immune from his father's frequent wrathful and violent outbursts after he returns from his demeaning job. He is bored and lonely in his new home, with no close friends and little to occupy his fertile mind.

One day Raj watches the prison from nearby woods out of curiosity of the men who are housed there, and he is surprised to see a boy who is similar to him in age and size, although his blond hair and blue eyes set him apart. The two make eye contact, and later meet in a local hospital, where they quickly become friends despite their language differences. Raj learns that David is part of a group of approximately 1500 Jewish émigrés who attempted to travel from Eastern Europe to Palestine to escape the Nazis in 1940, but were refused admission because they did not have proper immigration documents. The British government determined that they were illegal immigrants, and condemned them to internment in the prison.

David is returned to the prison after his hospitalization, and Raj continues to observe his new friend from the woods. He escapes after a skirmish within the compound, and Raj helps him to flee from his pursuers. Unfortunately David is not well, and the two boys struggle to find food and shelter, as David's health rapidly declines.

The Last Brother is a wonderful coming of age novel, narrated by Raj as he nears the end of his life, which also highlights a little known chapter of Jewish history. The love and friendship that the two boys share rivals that of the most intimate couples, and these two characters will stay close to my heart for a long time to come. show less

I have a soft spot for novels told from the perspective of an adult narrator looking back on the events of their childhood. I think there's a mixture of wistfulness and cynicism there that can be really potent when done right. Nathacha Appanah's The Last Brother is a great example of why this microgenre works: it's a tender, poetic, quietly moving meditation on the meaning of youthful ignorance as seen through the eyes of a seventy-year-old man who has loved much and lost even more.

Raj, the show more narrator, lives in poverty and perpetual sickness in Mauritius, with a kind mother and abusive father who are both wracked by the deaths of their two other sons (giving Raj his titular identity within the family). The island becomes the unlikely prison for hundreds of Jews who are waylaid on their way to Palestine during the Second World War and, completely ignorant to these global events, Raj secretly befriends one of the interned Jewish children, David. It is the sort of simple, wordless, yet immensely deep bond that can only be formed during childhood.

This book is both beautiful and crushingly sad. Appanah gorgeously renders both the internal landscape of a grieving boy and the external landscape of a lush island suddenly ravaged by storms. Somehow seeing the horrors of abuse, starvation, illness, and concentration camps through the uncomprehending eyes of a child makes them all the more tragic. The story is simple—but, I think, all the better for it.

____________________

Global Challenge: Mauritius show less

As World War II starts to wind down, Raj, a 9-year-old living in poverty in Mauritius, knows nothing about the war or, it seems, anything else outside of his immediate experience; given that survival for his family is a day-to-day matter, it’s hardly a surprise. One day he is badly beaten and is taken to the hospital of a nearby prison camp where his father is a guard. There he meets David, a boy his own age. David, we learn (though Raj doesn’t until later), is a refugee, one of a group show more of Jews whose escape from Nazi Germany ended in their extended internment in this camp in Mauritius. A highly destructive island-wide storm allows David to escape with Raj's help. Eventually, the boys flee into the forest which leads in turn to the central tragedy of the story. The story is told by the aging Raj through recollection, interspersed with current-day reflections on aging and (particularly on) loss. I enjoyed this more than I expected and found that the book resonated…and has stayed with me. Recommended. show less