# When Memory Dies

Canonical: https://www.bookquiver.com/a-sivanandan/when-memory-dies/9781905147595

![When Memory Dies](https://quivercdn.com/covers/arcadia-parent-imprint/a-sivanandan/when-memory-dies_978-19-0514-759-5.jpg?v=2026-05-09%2011%3A31%3A24)

- Book: [When Memory Dies](https://www.bookquiver.com/a-sivanandan/when-memory-dies) ([When Memory Dies.md](https://www.bookquiver.com/a-sivanandan/when-memory-dies.md))
- Authors: [A. Sivanandan](https://www.bookquiver.com/a-sivanandan)
- Publisher: arcadia_parent_imprint
- ISBN: 978-19-0514-759-5
- Pages: 1
- Published: 2013-08-01
- Language: en_GB
- Binding: Softcover

## Description

" Haunting, with an immense tenderness . . . Unforgettable" JOHN BERGER " I'm recommending When Memory Dies to everyone" ARTHUR C. CLARKE " Profoundly moving" Evening Standard " A brilliant and moving first novel" Times Literary Supplement A powerful three-generational saga of a Sri Lankan family's search for coherence and continuity in a country broken by colonial occupation and riven by ethnic wars. Through the viewpoints of three generations of a Sri Lankan family (taking the reader from 1920 through the 1980s), Sivanandan explores a culture destroyed first by colonization, then through the ethnic divisions that are released when the country achieves independence. The family, which lives at a level of poverty that makes survival a constant struggle, must also balance love for one another with a deep love of their homeland. Without bending to romanticism or proselytization, the author evokes a compelling and very human story of a lost country. It is a vision as beautifully told as it is unrelenting in its devotion to truth. In the process, the work also supplies a rich historic background to the often underreported news accounts of the massacres and upheavals in Sri Lanka. **Winner of the Sagittarius Prize **Shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize**