Title: Vanni: A Family’s Struggle through the Sri Lankan Conflict (GN)
Publisher: The Pennsylvania State University Press
Research and Story by: Benjamin Dix
Script and Illustration by: Lindsay Pollock
Price: $ 19.95 US
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Website: www.psupress.org/
Comments: Two families the Ramachandrans and the Chologars are the focus of this book.
The Prologue shows Antoni and Rajini in love living a wonderfully simple life. He is a fisherman and he loves his family. They all lead a happy life.
Part One: The art is fairly simple and done with nice shading and tones. One of the family while fighting for the freedom of his country does suffer for it. Now as Jaga adjusts to his disability a tsunami strikes Sri Lanka. It is a disaster. The art and story bring across the terrible way this storm impacted the people. Even after the storm has passed its effects remain.
Part Two: Life goes on in this troubled country. Fighting is going on and it is the common people who suffer the most.
Pushpa and Vimal are a couple who care about helping others.
The Tigers take Priya to join them. The Tigers are freedom fighters but they use methods that have nothing to do with freedom. The army we see is serious and they are killing Sri Lankans.
The art shows you a people that are desperate yet they still maintain their morals and dignity. We are also shown the horrors of war. No one wins in war.
Part Three: Here as the fighting increases we see that it is the civilians that suffer the most. They are left unsure of what is happening and what will happen. The art beautifully brings across the hardships put on all the people. The children especially as they do not fully understand what is going on.
Part Four: A father and husband does what he can to reunite with his family. It is a long process and hard on all those involved. You can tell all those involved are tired.
Epilogue: Here we have the ending to this book. A family does everything to keep going on and even after the war is over its implications continue. Yet people do move on and go on with their lives.
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