What Lies Between Us
Nayomi Munaweera, 2016
St. Martin's Press
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250043948
Summary
In the idyllic hill country of Sri Lanka, a young girl grows up with her loving family; but even in the midst of this paradise, terror lurks in the shadows.
When tragedy strikes, she and her mother must seek safety by immigrating to America.
There the girl reinvents herself as an American teenager to survive, with the help of her cousin; but even as she assimilates and thrives, the secrets and scars of her past follow her into adulthood.
In this new country of freedom, everything she has built begins to crumble around her, and her hold on reality becomes more and more tenuous. When the past and the present collide, she sees only one terrible choice.
From Nayomi Munaweera, the award-winning author of Island of a Thousand Mirrors, comes the confession of a woman, driven by the demons of her past to commit a single and possibly unforgivable crime. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1973
• Where—Colombo, Sri Lanka
• Raised—Los Angeles, California, USA
• Education—B.A., University of California (UCAL), Irving; M.A., UCAL, Riverside
• Awards—Commonwealth Book Prize (Asian Region)
• Currently—lives in the San Francisco Bay area
Nayomi Munaweera is a Sri Lankan American writer and author of two novels. Her 2012 debut Island of a Thousand Mirrors won Commonwealth Book Prize for the Asian Region in 2013 and was shortlisted for a number of other awards. In 2016 she released her second novel What Lies Between Us.
Nayomi Munaweera was born in Sri Lanka, but her family left to escape the ravages of the civil war. They went first to Nigeria then eventually settled in Los Angeles, California, where Munaweera spent her teenage years. She holds Bachelor's degree in Literature from the University of California, Irvine, and a Master's degree in South Asian Literature from the University of California, Riverside.
Novels
Island of a Thousand Mirrors, Munaweera's debut novel, was published in South Asia in 2012 and in the U.S. in 2014. It tells the story of the conflict between two main ethnic groups in Sri Lanka from the perspective of two girls who witness the horror of the civil war. The war officially began in 1983 and continued until 2009.
What Lies Between Us is the story of a young Sri Lankan teenager who outwardly has taken up the mantel of American adolescence. Underneath, however, she struggles to reconcile her life in the U.S. with her traumatic past. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 3/52016.)
Book Reviews
The paradisiacal landscapes of Sri Lanka are as astonishing as the barbarity of its revolution, and Munaweera evokes the power of both in a lyrical debut novel worthy of shelving alongside her countryman Michael Ondaatje or her fellow writer of the multigenerational immigrant experience Jhumpa Lahiri.
Publishers Weekly
[A] girl from Sri Lanka's beautiful hill country escapes terror by immigrating with her mother to America yet can't shake off the past and is eventually driven to commit a terrible crime.
Library Journal
This family tragedy begins in a prison cell, where the unnamed narrator wants to explain her (also unnamed) crime.... The melodramatic framing device only distracts from the crystalline precision with which Munaweera renders the richness of the immigrant experience as well as her character's singular longings, fears, joys, and demons.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Did you suspect who really was abusing the main character? What are the clues? What did you think of Samson? Do you think her mother may have suffered a similar transgression? Why did Ganga assume it was Samson all along? Why was she unable to remember the true abuser?
2. What is the book saying about the restorative powers of love. Why was Daniel's loyalty and love not able to save Ganga? Do you think he should have acted differently? What do you think he could have done to prevent what happened?
3. Childhood sexual abuse affects untold numbers of people all over the world. What is the book saying about the lifelong toll of trauma? About the weight of secrets untold upon a life?
4. Ganga's crime is one that is more common than you would think. She is also extremely regretful of her crime. Do you think she should be forgiven? Is this a crime that can be forgiven?
(Questions from the author's website.)
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Nayomi Munaweera is a Sri Lankan American writer and author of Island of a Thousand Mirrors, which won Commonwealth Book Prize for the Asian Region in 2013.
Island of a Thousand Mirrors was her debut novel and was published in South Asia in 2012. It went on to be nominated for many of the sub-continent’s major literary prizes including Man Asian Literary Prize and won the Commonwealth Regional Prize for Asia in 2013.[1] It was long listed for the Dublin IMPAC Prize and short listed for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature.[2] The novel was released in America by St. Martin’s Press in 2014. It tells the story of the conflict between two main ethnic groups in Sri Lanka from the perspective of two girls who witness the horror. The civil war officially began in 1983 and continued until 2009.[3]
Biography
Nayomi Munaweera was born in Sri Lanka, grew up in Nigeria and settled in Southern California. She holds bachelor's degree in Literature from the University of California, Irvine and a master's degree in South Asian Literature from the University of California, Riverside.[4]
