In the Garden Secretly and Other Stories — Jean Arasanayagam

Each story in this collection captures a defining moment in the life of the narrator caught in a time of violent change. In the title story, set against the backdrop of the seventeen-year struggle between the state and the Tamil separatists, an abandoned home in the war-torn north makes a young airman re-evaluate what he is doing. The great division between the north and the south of the island also underlies 'The Crossing', where a simple journey becomes a transition from one life to another for two travellers - a young student and an elderly woman. All the other stories in the collection also delicately explore the legacies of war: the mistrust, the insecurity, the fear and the fragmentation. Written with great sensitivity and lyricism, this collection is a moving human record of the recent tragic history of the island-nation.