Out of Print--Limited Availability.

Add to List

Added to

Unable to add item to List. Please try again.

Have one to sell?

Sell on Amazon

Follow the Author

Anita Pratap

Island of Blood: Frontline Reports From Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Other South Asian Flashpoints Hardcover – January 1, 2001

by Anita Pratap (Author)

4.3 59 ratings

See all formats and editions

Price

New from

Used from

Kindle

"Please retry"

$14.99

—

Paperback

"Please retry"

$19.00

$15.00

$3.45

Kindle
$14.99 Read with our Free App
Paperback
$19.00

4 Used from $3.45 4 New from $15.00 1 Collectible from $8.85

This book is a distillation of the experiences and insights of one of the finest journalists India has ever produced. During the eighties and nineties, when the Indian media rarely ventured into flashpoints like Sri Lanka and Afghanistan, Anita Pratap braved the odds to send in reports from the front, over and over again. First in India, then Sri Lanka Anita managed to gain access to LTTE Chief Pirabhakaran. In Afghanistan, she eluded the Taliban militia to discover the frightening reality of women's lives under a terrifyingly fanatical regime. In Bangladesh, she experienced the catastrophic fury of nature, as a cyclone ripped apart homes and lives.

Print length

276 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Viking
Publication date

January 1, 2001
ISBN-10

0670049034
ISBN-13

978-0670049035
See all details

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5

59 global ratings

How customer reviews and ratings work

Sort reviews by

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Arthur Ramesh

Mind of an elusive fighter

Reviewed in the United States on September 24, 2004

Verified Purchase

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.

She felt that Prabhakaran on the pretext of fighting for the dead is burying the alive.

In 2009, there was no one alive to be buried hence no fighting either

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Lotus

Part of the collectio to know root cause of Sri Lanka conflict.

Reviewed in the United States on June 27, 2013

Strongly recommend reading this book with an open mind. Anita Pratap is a brave Journalist, who won a lot of awards and risked her life to meet with the Rebel leader in Sri Lanka. Otherwise we only get to hear the perception created by, you know who...

A must have if you wanted to know the root cause of the Chronic problem in Sri Lanka where Tamils were being used as a scapegoat. Remember in the early 70's, long before the Tamil Rebels formed, many innocent Sinhalese youth were massacred by the Govt. under and floated in the rivers in the south?

Now, check your library to see if the books on Sri Lanka are biased or not? In fact, check out the book 'Cultures of the world: Sri lanka' and see the section on ethnic conflict...

Ensure the library has the unbiased books like the 'Still counting the dead'?
Still Counting the Dead: Survivors of Sri Lanka's Hidden War

Finally, to see the latest of Media Freedom in Sri Lanka, see Jdslanka.org
for a list of Journalists killed: newseum.org/scripts/Journalist/countryDetail.asp?countryID=76

Depending on if this post was useful, click the button below.

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

V. Marshall

A Brave and Informative Read

Reviewed in the United States on May 10, 2004

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.

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

joe_bala@hotmail.com

Frontline stories, full of detail

Reviewed in the United States on August 14, 2003

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.

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

sivakumar sekharannair

wounderful book.. but too costly

Reviewed in the United States on May 28, 2016

Verified Purchase

The book is extremely good.. But its tooo costly for the content.. its too costly

Helpful

Ravi C.

Helpful reading for understanding Sri Lanka, but that's about it.

Reviewed in the United States on July 3, 2010

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.

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Muthuram S

Soul Touching

Reviewed in India on June 6, 2021

Verified Purchase

Excellent Book..! Her (anita pratap) way of explaining the moments was very attractive and imaginable while reading...! 😍

One person found this helpful

Dawood

Great book, arrived in great condition!

Reviewed in Singapore on July 24, 2022

Verified Purchase

Great book if you're looking to understand the Sri Lankan Tamils pain and suffering during the civil war in Sri Lanka.

George Panicker

Some Pages of this book were blank

Reviewed in India on September 22, 2023

Verified Purchase

Some Pages of this book were completely blank missing crucial part of chapter. What due diligence doing by the publisher to check whether all pages are available or nor

Karthik Ramesh

Good Printing Quality

Reviewed in India on July 23, 2021

Verified Purchase

Good Printing Quality

One person found this helpful

Roji Jacob

Good Read

Reviewed in India on August 30, 2016

Verified Purchase

Good Read.... She has a flare to put in words what she had seen... Good perspective from a journalist point... She is a daredevil reporter.... It shows...

See more reviews

Sorry, there was a problem.

Sorry, there was a problem.

Follow the Author

Island of Blood: Frontline Reports From Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Other South Asian Flashpoints Hardcover – January 1, 2001

Customer reviews

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Top reviews from other countries