The Other One

With precise and poignant detail Hasanthika Sirisena conjures up an entire and original world in these well-written stories. Through the intimate portrayal of the lives of men and women caught up in Sri Lanka's turmoil she conveys all the uncertainty, the changing cultures, the terrors, and hopes of our lives.""—Sheila Kohler, author most recently of Dreaming for Freud

""In Hasanthika Sirisena’s collection, she crafts a stunning array of voices and characters that captivate with deeply moving grace people struggling to find their place in the world. Set primarily in Sri Lanka and the United States, Sirisena creates understated stories with the skill of a fine artisan–with each story exploring the political and the private. As the characters live in the world, we see how not only Sri Lanka, but how family and war leaves its mark on every character–from housewives to teenagers, soldiers to low-level laborers. These stories are unflinching and honest and evoke the pain and exile of war. This is a collection that is not only important, it’s pitch-perfect, necessary, and enthralling.""—Nina Swamidoss McConigley, author of Cowboys and East Indians, winner of the 2014 PEN Open Book Award

""Holy moly, this is one of the best short story collections I’ve read in years. The beginnings of the stories grip you. The middles tighten their hold. The endings sound in thunder. The author follows a cast of characters, all of whom are haunted in various ways by the Sri Lankan civil war, around the globe—Kuwait, Australia, the US. In one story, the atrocities a solider committed are brought back to him by a menacing predatory shrimp. Elsewhere, two boys act out revenge on another by attacking his office with milk- and raw-turkey-filled Molotov cocktails. The characters in several stories fear and suspect the worst of their own family members, and through acts of great sacrifice and idiocy evidence those repressed fears in all the worst ways. If, as the author writes, the civil war in Sri Lanka created 'a whole new sick little alphabet'—LTTE, SLFP, UNP, JVP—the language here does the opposite: it makes of a terrible chapter of history, a work of art of great beauty, humor, and insight.""—Jeff Parker, Juniper Prize judge and author of Where Bears Roam the Streets: A Russian Journal

""Lucid and wise, the haunting stories in The Other One illuminate the lives of Sri Lankans at home and in the States, lives shaped by the legacy of civil war. This is an unforgettable debut, and Hasanthika Sirisena is a truly remarkable writer.""—Claire Messud, author of The Woman Upstairs