''Love Marriage '' (2008) is the debut novel by author V. V. Ganeshananthan set in

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

and North America. Published by Random House in April 2008, ''Love Marriage'' was named one of ''

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'''s Book World's Best of 2008, and appeared on the longlist for the Orange Prize. It was also selected as a

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Discover Great New Writers Pick. Ganeshananthan began the novel as part of her senior thesis at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

under the direction of Jamaica Kincaid. In a series of

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, Ganeshananthan's novel chronicles how Sri Lankan politics have affected and continue to affect a particular family. Its narrator, Yalini, is a young woman born to Sri Lankan parents in

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on July 23, 1983—the same day as one of the most violent episodes in the Sri Lankan Civil War, Black July. The novel follows Yalini and her family from suburban America to

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, where they reunite with an uncle who has left Sri Lanka, after a life of militancy with the Tamil Tigers.V.V. Ganeshananthan,

References

See also