In the opening pages of Shankari Chandran’s third novel, Sister Fina, a Carmelite nun, slips in the blood of a 14-year-old child who has succeeded in his most recent suicide attempt. Even after his death, she thinks of him as a survivor.
“Kannan Puveendran, aged fourteen, had survived the bombing of his village, Kokavil, in the Vanni region of northern Sri Lanka in the final months of the way, years before,” Chandran writes. “He had survived the march through the jungle from the smouldering remains of his village to a small stretch of beach on the other side of the island. He survived dehydration, heat, hunger, and dysentery. On that beach, his mother prayed that the Red Cross ships, moored just five kilometres off the coast, would send lifeboats for them. Instead, the Red Cross waited, paralysed by international diplomacy and geopolitical agendas.”
