Anuk Arudpragasam is from Colombo, Sri Lanka, and is currently completing a dissertation in philosophy at Columbia University. He writes in Tamil and English. The Story of a Brief Marriage is his first novel.
Winner of the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature and the Shakti
Bhatt First Book Prize
Shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize
Named One of the Top 10 Novels of 2016 by The Wall Street
Journal
Named a Best Book of 2016 by NPR, The Boston Globe, BuzzFeed, The
Financial Times, The Globe and Mail, and Entropy Magazine
"Brave...Brilliant...This is a book that makes one kneel before the
elegance of the human spirit and the yearning that is at the
essence of every life."
--The New York Times Book Review "An exceptional debut...Beautiful
and penetrating and truthful: a small work of art whittled from
atrocity."
--The Wall Street Journal "The novel is set in the Sri Lankan civil
war, but it could just as easily be Syria, Somalia or Yemen. I have
never seen such horror rendered with such poetry. This may be the
shortest book I read all year but it lodged in my brain more than
almost any other."
--Ari Shapiro, NPR (Best Books of 2016)
"Luminous...Profound...Perfectly written...It has the aura of a
small, timeless masterpiece...The novel does not attempt to
normalize fear or violence. Rather, it demands that we pay this war
and these people what they are owed--our careful attention, some
subtle noticing."
--Colm Tóibín, Bookforum "Anuk Arudpragasam's The Story of a Brief
Marriage is a devastating account of political violence that
refuses the grand abstractions of political discourse and dwells
instead in complicated moments of intimacy--and in the ragged,
luminous particulars of physical experience. It brings Ezra Pound's
notion of periplum--the shoreline as seen by the sailor, not as it
appears on the map--to the terrain of war. It's the merciless,
unsurrendered song of what it means to live in the midst of death.
This novel changed my sense of how a novel can draw its own
borders, and what it can do inside them."
--Leslie Jamison, author of The Empathy Exams "The Story of a Brief
Marriage written with subtlety, tact and intelligence. Every image
in the book, including the most desolate, is rendered with
precision and an aura of pure truth and tenderness. It is a great
achievement, one of the best books I have read in years."
--Colm Toibin, New York Times bestselling author of Brooklyn
"The most extraordinary novel I read this year...In its small span
it tackles the largest themes: the purposelessness of human
suffering, the love that gives purpose to human life."
--Garth Greenwell, GQ Devastating...The author keeps the war's
context shadowy, giving Dinesh's plight an existential force...An
act of sustained empathy.
--The New Yorker "Astonishing...One of the most extraordinary
novels of the year...A profound meditation on bodies in turmoil.
It's a book that lives in the body long after you finish it."
--Barnes & Noble Review "Spectacular...Profound...Arudpragasam
writes with control, clarity, and a terrible beauty that
acknowledges the world's grandeur in the midst of darkness. But
despite the desolate subject matter, this is not a desolate tale.
It is as much about finding the strength to live fully, even in
such close proximity to death as Dinesh finds himself, as it is
about our capacities to endure pain."
--Financial Times (Best Books of 2016)
"Beautiful...Remarkable...Rich with metaphor and unflinching in its
look at life in a war zone."
--Los Angeles Review of Books
The Story of a Brief Marriage got under my skin like few other
books did this year. It's written with a stunning precision, and
there's a powerful tension between Arudpragasam's sometimes lyrical
use of language and the horrors of the war around which this book
is set.
--Tobias Carroll, Vol. 1 Brooklyn (Favorite Books of 2016)
"Masterful...So vivid and visceral that it feels like
magic...Arudpragasam describes the physical experience of being
alive in a way that makes your heart beat faster."
--Book Riot "Philosophical thought suffuses [Arudpragasam]'s
fiction...He's is a writer attuned to, and unafraid of,
discomfort--an essential quality in our current moment."
--Guernica "Sublime...A rumination on the precious ordinary things
of life...Arudpragasam is awake to, more than anything else, the
sacredness of life, of its fragility...He shows us the relief that
is possible, the love that is sought, ever so briefly."
--Rohini Mohan, The Hindu "Slim and devastating...Arudpragasam's
prose slays in its detail...The traditional war narrative has never
been quite so intimate. The Story of a Brief Marriage strikes at
the core of sacrificial love when the heart has nothing left to
give."
--Ploughshares "A suspended, reverie-like innocence suffuses Anuk
Arudpragasam's Sri Lankan civil war-set romance."
--Vogue (Books People Are Talking About) "Formidable...Brilliantly
unsettling...Recalling Jose Saramago, The Story of a Brief Marriage
takes a fraught political-historical moment and creates out of it a
fable-like novel."
--The Guardian "Like poetry...Arudpragasam masterfully gives us the
details of each experience...This is not the simplicity of broad
strokes, but a pointillism whose interior swirls infinitely,
demanding an eye that will not turn away...The book changed
me."
--The Rumpus "Beautiful and devastating."
--Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney, The Millions "[A] small miracle of a
debut...Brief but shattering, this poetic, philosophical,
transporting work confronts the reader with the texture of life
endured behind numbing, daily news headlines. What does it mean to
be human when living under a rain of death? This most humane of
novels offers an attempt at an answer."
--BookOxygen "Remarkable...Focused, passionate, and artful...There
are few books that reveal the emotional complexities of unending
warfare so thoroughly, and The Story of a Brief Marriage seems
destined to be remembered."
--Pacific Standard "Startling...Searing...Exquisite...A pensive and
tender portrait of how human beings reach for each other in times
of need, the novel explores what it means to be alive when dignity
has been stripped away...Recalls Primo Levi's If This Is a
Man."
--Irish Times "Told in meditative prose, this explosive novel marks
the arrival of a great new literary voice."
--Elle "Arudpragasam's touching, evocative prose, and original
premise make for an unforgettable addition to the war novel. A new
classic."
--The Globe and Mail (The 100 Best Books of 2016) "An intense and
beautiful account of the essential human spirit, painting a picture
of the first day of a marriage that all couples will recognize,
even those whose unions weren't marked by violence and civil
war."
--Bustle "Powerful...The prose style reminds one of Paul Harding's
Pulitzer-winning novel Tinkers...Arudpragasam shows that one can
write a deeply felt story coming from a place of
imagination--showing the humanity of the brutalized civilian in a
situation where nobody is granted the freedom to be innocent."
--The Wire "Luminous and expansive...Echoes for miles and
years...With a surgeon's touch, Dinesh's perceptions, assumptions,
perseverations, emotions, and physical experience are rendered
visible. Arudpragasam with poetic surprise documents the almost
minute by minute inner life of this soul."
--The Buffalo News "Poignant...Profoundly cognizant of the
fragility, sanctity, and beauty of life...[The Story of a Brief
Marriage] turns our focus not only on the brutality of war, but
also on the blessing of life."
--Washington Independent Review of Books "The tale of two strangers
suddenly thrust into a strange new relationship, The Story of a
Brief Marriage is an immersive portrait of life touched by war and
despair that will be sure to move you."
--BuzzFeed (Incredible New Books You Need to Read This Fall)
"When we discuss the difficulties of marriage, we take for granted
that many American relationships at least have the benefit of a
solid foundation of basic needs: shelter, food and, to an extent,
safety. The Story of a Brief Marriage strips a relationship of
those comforts, speaking to something more essential shared between
two humans."
--Huffington Post (20 New Books You'll Need for Your Shelf in Fall
2016)
"With care and precision, Arudpragasam delivers a deeply
contemplative, psychological portrait of war and how quickly
language and memory fall away in the face of constant terror...An
incisive glimpse into the brutality of war and the tender, human
urge to connect in the face of death and destruction."
--Kirkus Reviews
"In Dinesh, Arudpragasam creates a wholly empathetic and doting
character...Dinesh finds beauty in the worst of situations, which
contributes to making this debut deeply moving and hopeful."
--Publishers Weekly "Beautifully descriptive...Haunting...This
gorgeously written novel is similar to Vaddey Ratner's In the
Shadow of the Banyan in the way it captures intimate human
experiences in the face of war."
--Booklist "Very seldom in a reading life does a novel alter your
sense not only of literature but of the world. This extraordinary
debut is of that class: a novel of consciousness unrelenting in its
devotion to the imperiled body; an exquisite, unbearably moving
work of art equally alive to brutality and tenderness. Anuk
Arudpragasam has written a great book. I will never forget it."
--Garth Greenwell, author of What Belongs to You "Anuk
Arudpragasam's novel is a work of furious, hypnotic beauty--honest
and unsparing in its engagement with the consequences of war, and
brilliantly tender and generous in its portrayal of love."
--Dinaw Mengestu, author of All Our Names "I can say only what is
true: this book is a work of art in the most profound sense. It
makes from real life a fiction that shows what real life is. To
read this book is to feel the abomination and the holiness of life,
together in every moment, and to understand what literature is
for."
--Merritt Tierce, author of Love Me Back "An essential book, and
not just because its setting and its subject matter are essential,
but because it is so awake to--in fact haunted by--elements of
experience that rarely make it onto the page. One suspects that
Anuk Arudpragasam could choose to write about anybody, in any
circumstance, and through his pen one would feel the mysterious tug
of time upon their senses and the nakedness of their minds before
the world."
--Kevin Brockmeier, author of The Illumination "The Story of a
Brief Marriage is astounding. Anuk Arudpragasam has done something
so brilliant and so simple I'm still reeling. He's written a book
about the great subjects, love, war, life, and death. But he's done
it through the lens of the body. So close you will feel it in your
own body. I've been waiting decades for this book. I think I
started writing because I wanted to read this book."
--Nayomi Munaweera, author of What Lies Between Us and Island of a
Thousand Mirrors "I loved The Story of a Brief Marriage. I loved
the delicacy in the language, which seemed to me to have the
quality of thought unfolding. This novel is written with such care,
such devoted noticing."
--Sunjeev Sahota, Man Booker Prize-shortlisted author of The Year
of the Runaways "This small story of a brief marriage sends out
ripples far beyond its parameters: it bears witness to the lives
and suffering of those thousands of men, women, and children who
perished in the last days of Sri Lanka's civil war, whose numbers
are still uncounted and who lie in unmarked graves. When future
generations want to understand, in human terms, what happened, they
will read this graceful masterpiece."
--Shyam Selvadurai, author of Funny Boy "In Anuk Arudpragasam's The
Story of a Brief Marriage, the smallest, most granular acts of the
human body and the heart take on the aura of the miraculous--an ode
to the essential, unbearable battle to salvage one's humanity while
existing inside the grotesque and pitiless march of war. This novel
is the debut of a lifetime."
--Laura van den Berg, author of Find Me "The Story of a Brief
Marriage contains a series of mesmerizingly visceral scenes. It's
short and riveting, but I had to read it slowly to give its deep
power time to unfold, the sublime beauty of love and the stark
cruelty of war evoked through the truths of the body. It's an
amazing novel. I can't forget it."
--Kate Christensen, PEN/Faulkner Award-winning author of The Great
Man "The Story of a Brief Marriage opens with some of the most
extraordinary pages I have come across in recent years and then
continues to amaze. Unafraid to look its huge subjects--death, war,
life, love--straight in the eye, it nonetheless remains
marvelously, miraculously light on its feet. Anuk Arudpragasam
writes with courage, precision, and tenderness. You feel it in
every sentence. Read this novel. See what he has done."
--Laird Hunt, author of Neverhome "Anuk Arudpragasam's novel is a
report from that far, unnamed country called the human soul. I
cannot remember when I last read such a powerful excavation of the
silence that survives the explosions of language and time. The
Story of a Brief Marriage is one of the most meaningful, and
imaginative, literary works to come out of our wretched, war-torn
decades."
--Amitava Kumar, author of A Foreigner Carrying in the Crook of His
Arm a Tiny Bomb
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