Mosquito

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A lyrical and profoundly moving story of love, loss and civil war, set in Sri Lanka, London and Venice.When author Theo Samarajeeva returns to his native Sri Lanka after his wife’s death, he hopes to escape his gnawing loss amid the lush landscape of his increasingly war-torn country. But as he sinks into life in this beautiful, tortured land, he also finds himself slipping into friendship with an artistic young girl, Nulani, whose family is caught up in the growing turmoil. Soon friendship blossoms into love. Under the threat of civil war, their affair offers a glimmer of hope to a country on the brink of destruction…But all too soon, the violence which has cast an ominous shadow over their love story explodes, tearing them apart. Betrayed, imprisoned and tortured, Theo is gradually stripped of everything he once held dear – his writing, his humanity and, eventually, his love. Broken by the belief her lover is dead, Nulani flees Sri Lanka to a cold and lonely life of exile. As the years pass and the country descends into a morass of violence and hatred, the tragedy of Theo and Nulani's failed love spreads like a poison among friends sickened by the face of civil war, and the lovers must struggle to recover some of what they have lost and to resurrect, from the wreckage of their lives, a fragile belief in the possibility of redemption.Beautifully written, by turns heartbreaking and uplifting, `Mosquito’ is a first novel of remarkable and compelling power.From Publishers WeeklyIn Tearne's beautifully crafted debut, middle-aged novelist Theo Samarajeeva leaves London after the death of his wife and returns to his native Colombo, Sri Lanka, which has been ravaged by the continuing civil war between Tamil separatists and the Sinhalese majority government. In his many novels, Theo, who is Sinhalese, empathizes with the Tamil cause, but he refuses to take any extra precautions for his own safety on returning, despite the danger his books bring. After teenage artist Nulani Mendis, whose father was burnt alive by separatists, continually appears in his garden, where she draws in solitude, Theo commissions her to paint his portrait. As Theo and Nulani's lives become increasingly intertwined, genuine romance begins to unfold, but dangers lurk: a menacing former Tamil child solider, Vikram, has taken a liking to Nulani; meanwhile, Nulani's venomous uncle soon learns of the relationship with Theo. Tearne captures the desperation, fear and hope of love during wartime, showing multiple sides of the human capacity for survival. (July) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From BooklistAfter a self-imposed exile in London, writer Theo Samarajeeva returns to his homeland of Sri Lanka, which is on the brink of a violent uprising. Determined to write and to grieve over the death of his murdered wife, Theo is surprised by the friendship and blossoming love between himself and a young Sri Lankan artist, Nulani Mendis. Just as the two begin to create a life together, the encroaching civil war shatters their plans, casting them adrift and changing their lives forever. Tearne’s painterly approach to narrative renders visible the memory of love, the sensations of hope, and the heart-wrenching brutality of a war-torn nation. Mosquito depicts the Sri Lankan landscape just as beautifully as it explores its characters’ emotional pain and sense of longing. Like García Márquez in Love in the Time of Cholera, Tearne addresses questions of enduring love and the power of memory, guiding the reader into times of hopelessness but clinging to the traces of love that buoy the characters through unimaginable trials and sorrow. --Heather Paulson