The Seasons of Trouble

The Seasons of Trouble:Life Amid the Ruins of Sri Lanka’s Civil War

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An unforgettable account of the scars of a long war, and the prolonged mayhem of the postwar peace

For three decades, Sri Lanka’s civil war tore communities apart. In 2009, the Sri Lankan army finally defeated the separatist Tamil Tigers guerrillas in a fierce battle that swept up about 300,000 civilians and killed more than 40,000. More than a million had been displaced by the conflict, and the resilient among them still dared to hope. But the next five years changed everything.
Rohini Mohan’s searing account of three lives caught up in the devastation looks beyond the heroism of wartime survival to reveal the creeping violence of the everyday. When city-bred Sarva is dragged off the streets by state forces, his middle-aged mother, Indra, searches for him through the labyrinthine Sri Lankan bureaucracy. Meanwhile, Mugil, a former child soldier, deserts the Tigers in the thick of war to protect her family.
Having survived, they struggle to live as the Sri Lankan state continues to attack minority Tamils and Muslims, frittering away the era of peace. Sarva flees the country, losing his way – and almost his life – in a bid for asylum. Mugil stays, breaking out of the refugee camp to rebuild her family and an ordinary life in the village she left as a girl. But in her tumultuous world, desires, plans, and people can be snatched away in a moment.The Seasons of Trouble is a startling, brutal, yet beau­tifully written debut from a prize-winning journal­ist. It is a classic piece of reportage, five years in the making, and a trenchant, compassionate examina­tion of the corrosive effect of conflict on a people.

Reviews

  • Gripping and profoundly moving ... Rohini Mohan has produced an astonishing feat of
    reportage.

    Charles Mahtesian, NPR (Guide to 2014's Great Reads)
  • [P]oetic ... a thoroughly absorbing book.

    Economist
  • The Seasons of Trouble is devastatingly good. Rohini Mohan's intimately rendered account of the brutal end-game and unfinished aftermath of Sri Lanka's civil war is breathtakingly well-told. By focusing on the lives of three Tamils and telling their stories in novelistic detail, Mohan has revealed a modern tragedy of truly epic proportions. Haunting and unforgettable.

    Jon Lee AndersonNew Yorker