Brotherless Night by V. V. Ganeshananthan

The winner of the Women's Prize for Fiction and deservedly so. Historical fiction at its finest. This is the story of Sashi and her family, living through the civil war in Jaffna. I knew nothing about the Tamil Tigers until I started reading. Here is the kind of book that gets into your soul. 'I want you to understand' the narrator says, and now I do.

From the back

Sixteen-year-old Sashi wants to become a doctor. But over the next decade, as a vicious civil war tears through her hometown of Jaffna, her dream takes her on a different path as she sees those around her, including her four beloved brothers and their friend, get swept up in violent political ideologies and their consequences. Desperate to act, she must ask herself: is it possible for anyone to move through life without doing harm?