Mosquito

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 amidst the lush landscape of his increasingly war-torn country. But as he sinks into life in his 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 - a friendship that gradually 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 for 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.