Customer Reviews

Island of Blood

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First I must say that I have read only the five chapters dedicated to Sri Lanka, which makes about half of the edition for this country (Viyitha Yapa Publications).

I was just about to give up the book after a few pages because of Anita Pratap's style: it is completely annoying for absolutely self-centered and narcissist. Luckily I realized that being so obviously disgusting a style it took not so much effort to ignore that part and focus only on the information about her experiences as journalist, in the same way that you get accustomed to the noise of cars in the street.

Anita Pratap has interviewed on several occasions to Prabhakaran, leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and has lived from close range the anti-Tamil incidents happened in Colombo in July 1983 and the situation in Jaffna during the late 80s. Her experiences are valid and provide interesting information to understand the evolution of the Singhalese-Tamil conflict.

The same as you remove the stylistic noise you must read it carefully since she is far from objective when it comes to Prabhakaran and the conflict. In my case, my previous information was strongly biased to the Singhalese side, and therefore I thanked the opposite view, though I absolutely don't agree with her fan-like attitude towards the guerrilla leader. She describes the fight for Tamil Eelam as a romantic fight for freedom and justice. Unfortunately reality is different, and although I don't know enough about the origins of the conflict, its costs for innocent Singhalese and Tamil citizens are unjustifiable. It seems to me more an excessive obsession of a visionary than the real wish of the Tamil minority in Sri Lanka.

I recommend reading this book, in a critical mode and without great expectations. Unfortunately there are not as many books about this conflict and the Sri Lankan history of the 80s and 90s as there are for other conflicts.

Anita Pratap is a highly respected journalist in India, and this book details much of her experience covering the conflict in Sri Lanka, and also Afghanistan; she also covers Hindu-Muslim rioting in India, natural disasters, and in a more broad way, problems of women and children in South Asia. First, the positives - this is a very readable book, and has some of the best accounts of the Sri Lankan conflict that I've read so far (although short of critical analysis and historical perspective). She is an intrepid and incredibly brave journalist, and she goes to great lengths to get the story and in several cases, help her subjects. Now, the negatives: she tells us over and over again how lucky she is, what a charmed life she enjoys when she's not on the battlefield. Get over yourself, I wanted to say. It's a bit self-centered, when you compare it to the grimness of what she's reporting about. Needless to say, her transitions from her life to wars, etc are jarring. 'I was strolling along, smelling flowers. How unlike the smell of burning human flesh in Colombo." (This is a parody of her prose, but not far off.) Ugh. She repeats this kind of phrasing many times. I almost tossed the book aside in the first 50 or so pages, when she goes on and on about traveling with her son and being beset by leeches. Who cares? She makes up for it with the war reportage, though. My last quibble about that reportage was that she does almost no analysis, and seems to come to no conclusions. I find that a bit dishonest, given everything she's seen. Overall, an excellent read, particularly if you're interested in the Sri Lankan civil war, and you can overlook the author's self-centered prose, and often mangled constructions. One example (a quote): "Like her husband's corpse, bits and pieces of Rahima's hopes lay strewn all around her." Omigod, that is soooooooooo bad.

Ms. Pratap's intimate knowledge of the conflicts in Sri Lanka and Afghanistan are instrumental in the success of Island of Blood. Filled with intimate details of the LTTE, Island of Blood provides a great deal of insight into the conflict battered nation of Sri Lanka. Whether or not you are familiar with the situation in Sri Lanka, Ms. Pratrap does a wonderful job of presenting an easy to read version of the story. I highly recommend this book because of the intimate details that aren't available anywhere else.

I have to admit that as a student of history and political science, who is quite familiar with the sri lanka question, this book thoroughly disappointed me. Let me argue why.

First, there is a stylistic problem. I am familar with a number of journalists who write autobiographical-political works- Fergal Keane, Kate Adie, John Simpson and so on. Their work is imbued with both a sense of humility and an understanding of the larger context within which they've reported. Pratap is hugely self centred- her journalistic endeavours centre around her, and her alone; her subjects are there to make her sense of empathy evident, and to remind her how important her son is.

That's the other problem with this book: her son. He's everywhere. And there's a hint of family politics where she constantly degrades her husband's son Marcus as a boorish sulking 18 year old whereas her boy is bright, sparkling and witty. It's dirty linen that need not have been washed in public.

Third, each of the chapters have the same setting. She begins by describing something totally out of context, like a luxurious holiday or a car drive, and then something triggers off a memory of Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Bangladesh..wherever, and she plunges into that story. Such a device used in one chapter is fine, but used repeatedly sounds like a lack of imagination.

Now to her content: deeply flawed in it. She seems utterly enamoured of Prabhakaran and devotes most of the book to him. Those who suffered under him, including LTTE leader like Mahatiya, or under Tamilians or Sinhalese are given no agency. While her hair raising attempts to interview Prabhakaran make for interesting reading, she's hardly ruthless or even unbiased in questioning him. One leaves with the sense of Prabhakaran as the 'messiah of Sri Lankan Tamils' whereas in reality, while he was once a true hero, much of that aura has faded- he's now merely a terrorist who can't come to term with democratic politics and whose bloody politics only shames and demeans the cause he tries to promote. Pratap's inability to see through Prabhakaran makes this book less than balanced.

The bits on dowry, the Latur quake and the flood in Bangladesh are well written. But the idea of such a book is to leave it humbled, to feel that one's own problems are superficial in the face of so much plight. This book doesn't let you do that, simply because Pratap, instead of subtly presenting this argument, or letting the reader absorb the horrors of what she is saying, just keeps hammering this message in, thereby detracting from it.

My advice: go read Letter to Daniel, and Letters Home by Fergal Keane or John Simpson's three part autobiography if you want magnificient journalistic accounts from some of the world's most troubled regions.

Anita Pratap gives an exclusive view of LTTE and its leader, Mr.Prabhakaran. There is no journalist other than Anita that has so much access to LTTE and have given an inside look into the mind of world's most elusive man, Prabhakarn. She has taken extreme step to visit all the hot spots of the Indian Subcontinent. Her instincts about LTTE were correct when she met them in 1986.

I picked up this book not realizing the impact it contained. Anita Pratap is a journalist who relentlessly pursues her stories throughout war torn areas. As a woman she is inspirational and as a fact finder a bull-dog who gets her story done. She writes with great impact telling horror stories but still managing to find a fleck of beauty that emerges in her own life from the experience.

Pratap writes about dowry killings, Taliban rule and abuse, tribal wars and atrocites, class prejudices, poor people and abused children in areas like Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and India. These stories are courageous and bold and horribly real at the same time. Your heart will ache for the families that witness the horror of war killings and the pain of losing all that they own. This book will make you re-think your idea of sadness.