A Passage North

Life is short but remembering is long. In the aftermath of war, Anuk Arudpragasam's rich, rewarding sentences return the reader to all that is living -- Amitava Kumar
Anuk Arudpragasam is an artist of revelations. In A Passage North, he continues to map, with beauty, grace, and fire, the responsibilities we carry in a world that is forever on the brink. This is a novel as both an elegy and a love song, not only for a place, but for the souls, living and dead, who are bound to that place-what an unforgettable and perfect reading experience, and one that unearths truths, relentlessly, magically -- Paul Yoon
Anuk Arudpragasam's A Passage North is a profound and disquieting account of the making of a self, of the pressures of history, desire, will, and chance that determine the shape of a life. It's difficult to think of comparisons for Arudpragasam's work among current English-language writers; one senses, reading his two extraordinary novels, a new mastery coming into being -- Garth Greenwell, author of Cleanness and What Belongs to You
Mesmerizing, political, intimate, unafraid - this is a superb novel, a novel that pays such close, intelligent attention to the world we all live in * Sunjeev Sahota *
A Passage North is written with scrupulous attention to nuance and detail. Its world is the deeply-layered, rich interior of its protagonist's mind but also contemporary Sri Lanka itself, war-scarred, traumatized. While the narrative is filled with images of violence and loss, at its center is an exquisite form of noticing, a way of rendering consciousness and handling time that connects Arudpragasam to the great novelists of the past -- Colm Toíbín
A novel of tragic power and uncommon beauty. In his depiction of the processes through which history sculpts human fate, Anuk Arudpragasam achieves something akin to grace I am also pasting below the full round-up of praise, which is mostly American, but I am still hoping that some of my Brits might come good... -- Anthony Marra, author of A Constellation of Vital Phenomena
A beautiful, urgent novel of displacement, love and atrocity set on a single long journey. Arudpragasam has achieved something extraordinary here - a philosophical novel that draws you in through the sheer depth and elegance of its ideas and expression until you feel like you're stowing away in the protagonist's mind -- Luke Kennard
Anuk Arudpragasam has a graceful way of unfolding a sentence to its fullest dimensions. Concerned with whether and how the calamitous forces of love and trauma can be accommodated among life's daily exigencies, A Passage North is a novel of consciousness alert to the turning of history and the micronavigations of bodies in a room. I've rarely read something so exquisitely alive -- Naoise Dolan
A novel of philosophic suspense, one whose reader shivers in anticipation not of what will happen next but of where the next thought will lead... A luminously intelligent, psychologically intricate novel-slow in always rewarding ways * Kirkus *
A young man ruminates about Sri Lankan history and his own life in the introspective latest from Arudpragasam...Readers who enjoy contemplative, Sebaldian narratives will appreciate this * Publishers Weekly *
The author of The Story of a Brief Marriage casts a spell in his sumptuous new novel... reminiscent of Michael Ondaatje's Anil's Ghost * Oprah Daily's Best Books of July *
Profound... hypnotic... Arudpragasam explores the desire for independence that enflamed the decades-long civil war, the violence that ensued and the emotional scars that refuse to heal * Observer *
It can take just two novels to establish a writer as one of the most individual minds of their generation... With his new novel, a revelatory exploration of the aftermath of war, Arudpragasam cements his reputation... [An] extraordinary and often illuminating novel * Financial Times *
A disquieting and contemplative book that seeks to comprehend the incomprehensible... With considered thoughts on everything from smoking to meditation, life and death, [Arudpragasam''s] new novel is a treasure trove of insight and wisdom, a reminder of "how large and unknown the world was, how much it seemed to contain" * Irish Times *
A beautiful, meditative book... so moving * Literary Friction *
It is an incredibly introspective work. Through the particularities of Krishan's experience and inner life, Arudpragasam seamlessly unfurls ruminations on intimacy, trauma, and the passage of time * Paris Review *
Arudpragasam is a patient and meticulous observer. * Guardian *
A Passage North is a singular novel by a singular writer and richly deserves its place on the Booker longlist... His prose manages that paradoxical feat of feeling urgent without seeming in a hurry. The long sentences, the free-associative paragraphs, the digressions into general subjects, all add up to something that is, for once, greater than the sum of its parts * Telegraph *
A sinuously discursive meditation on a nation's collective trauma... elegiac * TLS *
A book of striking, fluid elegance... Arudpragasam's technique [...] is the strongest and most considered on the [Booker Prize] shortlist * Spectator *
An arresting and poignant reflection on the legacy of civil war -- Books of the Year * Financial Times *
The individual and collective trauma of Sri Lanka's drawn-out civil war thrums as a backbeat through this Booker-shortlisted second novel... A thoughtful, introspective novel that journeys inwards, even as it traverses physically scarred landscapes -- Books of the Year * The Times and Sunday Times *
A haunting work about the power of memory and how we learn to see the world -- 100 must-read books of 2021 * TIME *
You can see Arudpragasam's progression as a writer; the book is mostly inward looking, meditative and completely immersive. He blends the past and present almost seamlessly, making for an even better novel than its predecessor * NPR *