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Москит
Поэтичная и драматичная история любви и потерь на фоне гражданской войны, разворачивающаяся на райском острове. Писатель Тео, пережив смерть жены, возвращается на родную Шри-Ланку в надежде обрести среди прекрасных пейзажей давно утраченный покой. Все глубже погружаясь в жизнь истерзанной страны, Тео влюбляется в родной остров, проникается его покойной и одновременно наэлектризованной атмосферой. Прогуливаясь по пустынному пляжу, он встречает юную девушку. Нулани, на глазах которой заживо сожгли отца, в деревне считается немой, она предпочитает общаться с миром посредством рисунков. Потрясенный даром девушки, Тео решает помочь ей вырваться из страны, пораженной проказой войны. Но вместе с сезоном дождей идиллический остров накрывает новая волна насилия, разлучая героев.Мощный, утонченный, печальный и мерцающий надеждой роман британской писательницы и художницы Ромы Тирн – это плотное, искрящееся красками полотно, в котором завораживающая красота Шри-Ланки и человеческая любовь вплетены в трагическую, но полную оптимизма историю. Роман номинировался на престижную литературную премию Costa.
Unknown Binding
First published January 1, 2007
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About the author
Roma Tearne
13 books94 followersRoma Tearne is a Sri Lankan born artist living and working in Britain. She arrived, with her parents in this country at the age of ten. She trained as a painter, completing her MA at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, Oxford. For nearly twenty years her work as a painter, installation artist, and filmmaker has dealt with the traces of history and memory within public and private spaces.
In 1998 the Royal Academy of Arts, London, highlighted one of her paintings, “Watching the Procession,” for its Summer Exhibition. As a result her work became more widely known and was included in the South Asian Arts Festival at the Ikon Gallery, Birmingham in 1992
In 1993, Cadogan Contempories, London, began showing her paintings. In 2000, the Arts Council of England funded a touring exhibition of her work. Entitled ‘The House of Small Things’, this exhibition consisted of paintings and photographs based on childhood memories. They were the start of what was to become a preoccupation on issues of loss and migration.
She became Leverhulme Artist in Residence at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford in 2002 and it was while working at the Ashmolean, as a response to public interest, that she began to write.
In 2003 she had a solo exhibition, Nel Corpo delle città (In the Body of the City), at the MLAC Gallery in Rome.
In 2006 she was awarded a three-year AHRC (Arts and Humanities Research Council) Fellowship, at Brookes University, Oxford where she worked on the relationship between narrative and memory in museums throughout Europe.
Out of this work came Watermuseum a film set in Venice which was shown at the Coastings exhibition in Nottingham in 2008. In 2008 she received funding from the Arts council of England in order to make a film on memory and migration. This film is due to be premiered in 2010.
Her second novel Bone China was published in April 2008 and her third Brixton Beach will be published in June 2009.
She will be having her first solo exhibition since 2001 at the 198 Gallery, Brixton at the same time.
Roma Tearne is currently a Creative Writing Fellow at Brookes University, Oxford.
In 1998 the Royal Academy of Arts, London, highlighted one of her paintings, “Watching the Procession,” for its Summer Exhibition. As a result her work became more widely known and was included in the South Asian Arts Festival at the Ikon Gallery, Birmingham in 1992
In 1993, Cadogan Contempories, London, began showing her paintings. In 2000, the Arts Council of England funded a touring exhibition of her work. Entitled ‘The House of Small Things’, this exhibition consisted of paintings and photographs based on childhood memories. They were the start of what was to become a preoccupation on issues of loss and migration.
She became Leverhulme Artist in Residence at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford in 2002 and it was while working at the Ashmolean, as a response to public interest, that she began to write.
In 2003 she had a solo exhibition, Nel Corpo delle città (In the Body of the City), at the MLAC Gallery in Rome.
In 2006 she was awarded a three-year AHRC (Arts and Humanities Research Council) Fellowship, at Brookes University, Oxford where she worked on the relationship between narrative and memory in museums throughout Europe.
Out of this work came Watermuseum a film set in Venice which was shown at the Coastings exhibition in Nottingham in 2008. In 2008 she received funding from the Arts council of England in order to make a film on memory and migration. This film is due to be premiered in 2010.
Her second novel Bone China was published in April 2008 and her third Brixton Beach will be published in June 2009.
She will be having her first solo exhibition since 2001 at the 198 Gallery, Brixton at the same time.
Roma Tearne is currently a Creative Writing Fellow at Brookes University, Oxford.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 102 reviews
February 19, 2021
"Has there ever been a country that,once colonized, avoided civil war?"
Set in Tearne’s native Sri Lanka 'Mosquito' has at its core a love story. Theo Samarajeeva is an author, who after the sudden death of his wife, returns to his home land in search of the inspiration to enable him to finish his latest book. Living in an isolated house on the beach he finds friendship with a neighbourhood girl, sixteen year old Nulani Mendis,a talented artist who brings light into his world. Recognizing her talent as an artist Theo encourages her to paint and commissions her to paint his portrait.As they spend increasing amounts of time in each other's company love gradually blossoms between the pair but as tensions between the Tamil and Singhalese communities erupt into violence and hatred how will their fledgling relationship survive?
This isn't a conventional love story: Theo is 45 whilst Nulani is only 17 when they realise that they are in love which, although not a scale of Lolita, could make it uncomfortable reading. However, it is Theo's manservant Sugi who makes the reader believe that it is simply the way it must be, that it has been written in the stars. Sri Lanka is a nation full of customs and beliefs that are at odds with western culture and these cultural differences and these are a recurring theme throughout the book.
Tearne doesn't shy away from the brutalities of civil war. In parallel to the developing relationship between Theo and Nulani, are two sub-plots. Vikram, a Tamil and a fellow student at Nulani's school, left an orphan after his family were brutalised by the Army, is being fed a diet of hate and vengeance to turn him into a terrorist. Theo’s friends, Rohan (an artist) and Guilia, escape to Italy just as they too are come under increasing suspicion only to find their marriage crumbling in the upheaval.
Tearne uses the love story as a vehicle to show the suffering, pain and brutality that impact on communities, families and individuals during a civil war. No one has it easy in this book. All her characters experience fear and loss yet it is a book essentially about hope and survival.
In many respects I found that this wasn't an easy book to read. I found that I couldn't simply pick it up and put it down as I pleased but had to really immerse myself in it, to allow it get under my skin and to wash over me like a wave but it was worth the effort. I know that I should be disapproving of the relationship of Theo and Nulani,that I should be taking sides in the civil war but as all sides perpetrate acts of barbarism none of this seems to matter. Tearne doesn't make any judgements either.
Just like her characters Nulani and Rohan, Tearne was an artist before turning her hand to authorship and it shows in her writing. Tearne paints with her words, creating lush, rich scenes whether they be on the shoreline or in the jungle, the fear and isolation of imprisonment, the despair of separation or the tragedy of the young Tamil child-soldiers groomed for suicide missions. You can almost smell the spices, feel the heat of the sun or the mosquitoes on your skin.
"there are places that don't belong to geography but to time."
I must admit that I have a real soft spot for post-colonial stories and this is certainly up there with the best ones that I've read, all the remarkable given that it was the author's first novel. Some may complain that the ending was a little fairy-tale like but after the reader has expended so much emotional energy anything else would have been just plain cruel IMHO.If you enjoy beautiful writing then I would heartily recommend it but expect to go on a roller-coaster of emotions.
Set in Tearne’s native Sri Lanka 'Mosquito' has at its core a love story. Theo Samarajeeva is an author, who after the sudden death of his wife, returns to his home land in search of the inspiration to enable him to finish his latest book. Living in an isolated house on the beach he finds friendship with a neighbourhood girl, sixteen year old Nulani Mendis,a talented artist who brings light into his world. Recognizing her talent as an artist Theo encourages her to paint and commissions her to paint his portrait.As they spend increasing amounts of time in each other's company love gradually blossoms between the pair but as tensions between the Tamil and Singhalese communities erupt into violence and hatred how will their fledgling relationship survive?
This isn't a conventional love story: Theo is 45 whilst Nulani is only 17 when they realise that they are in love which, although not a scale of Lolita, could make it uncomfortable reading. However, it is Theo's manservant Sugi who makes the reader believe that it is simply the way it must be, that it has been written in the stars. Sri Lanka is a nation full of customs and beliefs that are at odds with western culture and these cultural differences and these are a recurring theme throughout the book.
Tearne doesn't shy away from the brutalities of civil war. In parallel to the developing relationship between Theo and Nulani, are two sub-plots. Vikram, a Tamil and a fellow student at Nulani's school, left an orphan after his family were brutalised by the Army, is being fed a diet of hate and vengeance to turn him into a terrorist. Theo’s friends, Rohan (an artist) and Guilia, escape to Italy just as they too are come under increasing suspicion only to find their marriage crumbling in the upheaval.
Tearne uses the love story as a vehicle to show the suffering, pain and brutality that impact on communities, families and individuals during a civil war. No one has it easy in this book. All her characters experience fear and loss yet it is a book essentially about hope and survival.
In many respects I found that this wasn't an easy book to read. I found that I couldn't simply pick it up and put it down as I pleased but had to really immerse myself in it, to allow it get under my skin and to wash over me like a wave but it was worth the effort. I know that I should be disapproving of the relationship of Theo and Nulani,that I should be taking sides in the civil war but as all sides perpetrate acts of barbarism none of this seems to matter. Tearne doesn't make any judgements either.
Just like her characters Nulani and Rohan, Tearne was an artist before turning her hand to authorship and it shows in her writing. Tearne paints with her words, creating lush, rich scenes whether they be on the shoreline or in the jungle, the fear and isolation of imprisonment, the despair of separation or the tragedy of the young Tamil child-soldiers groomed for suicide missions. You can almost smell the spices, feel the heat of the sun or the mosquitoes on your skin.
"there are places that don't belong to geography but to time."
I must admit that I have a real soft spot for post-colonial stories and this is certainly up there with the best ones that I've read, all the remarkable given that it was the author's first novel. Some may complain that the ending was a little fairy-tale like but after the reader has expended so much emotional energy anything else would have been just plain cruel IMHO.If you enjoy beautiful writing then I would heartily recommend it but expect to go on a roller-coaster of emotions.
June 8, 2023
A book of hope and longing.
Set in the backdrop of the Sri Lankan Civil War. Amazing book which paints a picture of the gore of a Civil War and the people that get caught in the crossfire.
Set in the backdrop of the Sri Lankan Civil War. Amazing book which paints a picture of the gore of a Civil War and the people that get caught in the crossfire.
July 1, 2023
“...there are places that don't belong to geography but to time.”
Roma Tearne's first novel set in Sri Lanka easily approaches the "typical novel" that tries to paint two warring sides the same and have characters be impacted by them. What it misses is a voice that is fresh or a story that explores more of gray (which atleast one of the characters does)
Theo Samaraveera, a popular author, comes back to his country after his wife Anna dies. He takes a help Sugi, who soon becomes his friend and confidant and then meets this 17 year old girl, Nulani whose personal losses keep mounting. The first part shows Nulani's obsession with painting him and soon their friendship develop into something more complex and ultimately love.
When politics and language enter, the book suddenly becomes a story of survival and violence - the gory details that have now become standard addition to a Sri Lankan book. While one could predict the plot direction even before the author hints towards it, the book had too many characters to invest your energy into. The book becomes about Vikram a Tamil victim who is brainwashed into terrorism, meanders on to Sugi's promises and even tries to make the focus two of Theo's friends.
The book, according to me, tried to do too many things. I do admire the fact that she is able to do a George martin with her characters and also wonder what the point of slipping in so many references to mosquito.
An author you hope who could move on from the war.
Roma Tearne's first novel set in Sri Lanka easily approaches the "typical novel" that tries to paint two warring sides the same and have characters be impacted by them. What it misses is a voice that is fresh or a story that explores more of gray (which atleast one of the characters does)
Theo Samaraveera, a popular author, comes back to his country after his wife Anna dies. He takes a help Sugi, who soon becomes his friend and confidant and then meets this 17 year old girl, Nulani whose personal losses keep mounting. The first part shows Nulani's obsession with painting him and soon their friendship develop into something more complex and ultimately love.
When politics and language enter, the book suddenly becomes a story of survival and violence - the gory details that have now become standard addition to a Sri Lankan book. While one could predict the plot direction even before the author hints towards it, the book had too many characters to invest your energy into. The book becomes about Vikram a Tamil victim who is brainwashed into terrorism, meanders on to Sugi's promises and even tries to make the focus two of Theo's friends.
The book, according to me, tried to do too many things. I do admire the fact that she is able to do a George martin with her characters and also wonder what the point of slipping in so many references to mosquito.
An author you hope who could move on from the war.
January 19, 2014
I guess I'm the only one who has a problem with theo seducing a 17 year old innocent fatherless girl to satisfy himself. Another example of misbehaviour. This novel was not set in the west it is set in Sri Lanka. Even the tigers were careful about preserving the virtue of the girls they recruited. The fact that theo was a stranger to Sri Lanka as an expat who had spent many years away makes his behavior even more disturbing. 47 year old theo and the 17 year old school girl. He's lucky he didn't get killed by the girls uncle, especially since he was so indifferent to have her spend the night. What would have been a good story becomes bogged down with the inequality between the wealthy traveled theo and this poor girl who had never been outside of colombo. Maybe I just don't get it.
I wrote the above part when I was at the point where Theodore was captured. I finished the book last night. She writes beautifully. I still have a problem with the age difference between them but I loved the ending. It was gorgeous. She is now one of my favs
I wrote the above part when I was at the point where Theodore was captured. I finished the book last night. She writes beautifully. I still have a problem with the age difference between them but I loved the ending. It was gorgeous. She is now one of my favs
June 23, 2021
This is an exceptional novel, one of those rare first works which ticks all the boxes. Not for the faint-hearted, though, as Roma Tearne describes her native Sri Lanka in vivid and unsparing ways, providing gory details of brutality and torture. The novel is set during the country's bloody civil war and then moves towards the resolution of the conflict and a new society emerging. Not only is this an informative work about the relationship between Tamils and Sinhalese and the hatred present in their strife to achieve some form of cohabitation, but it develops characters which we grow to love and hate in equal measure. Ethnic cleansing and racial differences are at the root of this masterpiece, and, above all, the condemnation of torture and man's inhumanity to man. When the last page comes, there is a mixture of relief and desolation at the utter devastation that human beings can bring upon themselves.
March 4, 2021
One of those books, once started I just ploughed through in a couple of days. Just couldn't stop. Sometimes it was just awful (the subject I mean) and heartbreaking but I had to keep going to find out what happened to everyone. The ending... well, the book needed some level of hope for the end and it isn't a twee happy ending as everyone comes out of this damaged, but in a little way the book kind of fizzled out towards the end. But then how do you draw a conclusion to all of this and leave a bit of hope standing?
Set in Sri Lanka during the civil war between the ruling Singalese and the Tamil Tigers, the book follows a number of characters. We have Theo, a guy in his mid forties who has moved back to his native Sri Lanka having lived in Europe for decades. Between that and his liberal views and artistic mind (he is a sucessful writer), despite his age he is intensely naive. He just doesn't get the tensions between the two factions and assumes everyone will be as mature and reasonable as himself - wrong, wrong, wrong as he learns to dire consequences. I think he's also very naive in a way when it comes to Nulani, who is only 17 when they meet. She's an inexperienced chld in other words and the seduction of her is well meant and honest, but at the same time, given her circumstances, is he on some level taking advantage? But they're both alone and suffering. Theo's European wife died, and he was devastated and moved back to his native country under some illusion that home is always best. Nulani's father was burned alive in riots when she was a child and she lives with her mother, who dotes on her brother "Lucky Jim" and ignores her. So maybe they do need each other. But perhaps the 10 year gap Tearne gives them neatly solves that problem.
We also follow Vikram, a teenager living in the same town on the coast. He is Tamil, and as a boy saw his entire family killed by the army (should add on this point that the attrocities committed in this book are committed by both sides - there are amazingly good people on both sides as well as utterly evil - and the end result is that it all seems an intense waste of time and contempt for human life) and he is taken and put in an orphanage and then adopted into Singalese community, where I don't think everyone realises he is of Tamil origins. As he had a brief stint as a child solider for the Tamils, he is easily recruited back into their guerilla warfare. It's heartbreaking to see the use of child soldiers, how it not only steals their childhood but their humanity. They seem to be emotionless. And disgusting, when you see the attack on the airport, how the kids are all sent to do it (most of them being killed) and the adults are hiding in the jungle out of harm's way. No wonder they have teams of such merciless, horrendous torturers... they're bred thus from childhood. And in the end, those used and abused children are just tossed away as one-use disposable trash.
Theo's house manager/cook/cleaner/friend (I don't know what title to give him as he does so much) Sugi... oh, dear old Sugi... is there to look after Theo and try to advise him against being too foolhardy - Sugi understanding the real dangers of society at that time. And he is such a faithful and loyal friend to both Theo and Nulani.
Theo has a friend Rohan, a painter, also Sri Lankan with a European wife, who lives in Colombo and eventually has to flee himself as it's not safe. I suppose it's worthwhile and interesting to show the years after escaping to safety, for although they're away from the civil war and threat to life, the attrocities they've seen follow them and torment them for years. Trying to rebuild a life with that is not easy.
Set in Sri Lanka during the civil war between the ruling Singalese and the Tamil Tigers, the book follows a number of characters. We have Theo, a guy in his mid forties who has moved back to his native Sri Lanka having lived in Europe for decades. Between that and his liberal views and artistic mind (he is a sucessful writer), despite his age he is intensely naive. He just doesn't get the tensions between the two factions and assumes everyone will be as mature and reasonable as himself - wrong, wrong, wrong as he learns to dire consequences. I think he's also very naive in a way when it comes to Nulani, who is only 17 when they meet. She's an inexperienced chld in other words and the seduction of her is well meant and honest, but at the same time, given her circumstances, is he on some level taking advantage? But they're both alone and suffering. Theo's European wife died, and he was devastated and moved back to his native country under some illusion that home is always best. Nulani's father was burned alive in riots when she was a child and she lives with her mother, who dotes on her brother "Lucky Jim" and ignores her. So maybe they do need each other. But perhaps the 10 year gap Tearne gives them neatly solves that problem.
We also follow Vikram, a teenager living in the same town on the coast. He is Tamil, and as a boy saw his entire family killed by the army (should add on this point that the attrocities committed in this book are committed by both sides - there are amazingly good people on both sides as well as utterly evil - and the end result is that it all seems an intense waste of time and contempt for human life) and he is taken and put in an orphanage and then adopted into Singalese community, where I don't think everyone realises he is of Tamil origins. As he had a brief stint as a child solider for the Tamils, he is easily recruited back into their guerilla warfare. It's heartbreaking to see the use of child soldiers, how it not only steals their childhood but their humanity. They seem to be emotionless. And disgusting, when you see the attack on the airport, how the kids are all sent to do it (most of them being killed) and the adults are hiding in the jungle out of harm's way. No wonder they have teams of such merciless, horrendous torturers... they're bred thus from childhood. And in the end, those used and abused children are just tossed away as one-use disposable trash.
Theo's house manager/cook/cleaner/friend (I don't know what title to give him as he does so much) Sugi... oh, dear old Sugi... is there to look after Theo and try to advise him against being too foolhardy - Sugi understanding the real dangers of society at that time. And he is such a faithful and loyal friend to both Theo and Nulani.
Theo has a friend Rohan, a painter, also Sri Lankan with a European wife, who lives in Colombo and eventually has to flee himself as it's not safe. I suppose it's worthwhile and interesting to show the years after escaping to safety, for although they're away from the civil war and threat to life, the attrocities they've seen follow them and torment them for years. Trying to rebuild a life with that is not easy.
July 7, 2011
This is a book that is astounding in its complexity and clarity. The story offers every human emotion we know and some we may never have experienced and would hope never to be faced with.
This book has everything, love, loss, betrayal, despair, hope, anguish and resurrection of the human spirit. It touches on topics of love, war and struggle and emerging political power.
It's not often a book will move me to the point of actually crying, but this one is wrenching and powerful amd full of emotions. I am amazed at the atrocities men and humans do in the name of war and even more amazed at our resilisnce to come through it all changed and marked but alive.
I recommend this book to all my friends, and to anyone else. Read it. I just finished it and I will read it again, immediately.
This book has everything, love, loss, betrayal, despair, hope, anguish and resurrection of the human spirit. It touches on topics of love, war and struggle and emerging political power.
It's not often a book will move me to the point of actually crying, but this one is wrenching and powerful amd full of emotions. I am amazed at the atrocities men and humans do in the name of war and even more amazed at our resilisnce to come through it all changed and marked but alive.
I recommend this book to all my friends, and to anyone else. Read it. I just finished it and I will read it again, immediately.
April 9, 2013
Having already read Ondaatje's 'Anil Ghost' on the insurgency in Sri Lanka, comparisons between the two novels were of course, inevitable. And although Tearne is definitely no Ondaatje, her novel is one which haunts and lingers within the mind with an almost alarming clarity. Despite the fact that the love affair within the novel occurs between two protagonists who have an incredibly large age difference, it is the sincerity of their love and the haunting innocence of it that render it as aesthetically beautiful as any other love affair in literature. This novel is highly recommended for anyone who craves a good, unbiased read on the civil war in Sri Lanka - or anyone really, who appreciates the gift of literature.
October 3, 2016
To start and finish a novel by a Sri Lankan author who lives in Oxford, while in Sri Lanka, seemed too good to pass up. As long as the novel looked like it might be a good one. It did and it is. This wise book knows that we never know which of our experiences will become memories. Its vivid descriptions, especially of the Sri Lankan coast and the girl in the lime green skirt, lend poignancy to that insight. The palpable sense of loss that this precipitates is heart-rending, because this book shows us that loss is as much a part of life as is breathing.
April 15, 2012
Beautiful and brutal.
April 13, 2018
I chose to read Roma Tearne's Mosquito for the Sri Lanka stop on my Around the World in Eighty Books challenge. I tend not to read books which are primarily love stories; I like there to be a lot of other things going on. Mosquito looked as though it would fit the bill in respect, set as it is at a tumultuous period of Sri Lanka's history. Most other reviewers seem to have loved this, but it felt largely awkward to me. Some of the sentences are very bland and matter-of-fact, and others feel highly overwritten; there is no overall balance between the two. The dialogue is stilted, and I found it quite repetitive. I couldn't get into the story at all, and was a little disappointed that the setting has been so sidelined. So much more could have been made of this novel.
April 14, 2018
This is an absolutely beautiful novel. Roma Tearne is a painter, and tells an exquisite story of an author who returns to his home in Sri Lanka from years in Europe and a young Sri Lankan woman who is an emerging artist. Tearne almost paints with words, so that you feel like you are having a visual experience as well as a literary one.
She really evokes the sights, smells and sounds of Sri Lanka. And gives the background of the civil war and political conflict without it overwhelming the personal stories of the main characters. It was a quick and engaging read but also evocative and emotional story.
She really evokes the sights, smells and sounds of Sri Lanka. And gives the background of the civil war and political conflict without it overwhelming the personal stories of the main characters. It was a quick and engaging read but also evocative and emotional story.
June 23, 2019
Roma Tearne’s first novel ‘Mosquito’ is a beautiful tale of lost souls in search of one another set against the backdrop of the long-running civil war in Sri Lanka. She takes characters from different sides of the conflict, as well as characters oblivious to the conflict, throws them all together and leaves us to watch the sparks fly.
Theo Samarajeeva is a writer who has lived abroad for many years before returning to make his home in his native country. He’s internationally famous for his book ‘Tiger Lily’, a deeply dark story set in the conflict but sympathetic to the Tamil minority. Theo is a man of the world who thinks that religion doesn’t really matter but whilst it might not matter to him, it certainly matters to those around him. He’s a Singhalese, considered a traitor by many of his Buddhist countrymen and an object of curiosity to their Tamil opponents.
Theo returns to the house he owned many years before. Professionally he’s a success with his books available world wide and with ‘Tiger Lily’ made into an acclaimed film but Theo has lost the only thing that mattered to him, his wife Anna. He hopes that returning to his beach house will help him find the peace that eludes him in Europe. On arrival he meets a local man, Sugi, who becomes his housekeeper and friend. Sugi warns him to take care, not to walk on the beach after curfew, not to draw attention to himself, but Theo doesn’t take advice.
Theo has nothing to lose and not much to live for until a local girl, Nulani Mendis, starts to hang about in his garden, hiding in the bushes and drawing Theo. The two become friends and he admires her talent, commissioning her to paint his picture, taking her to meet his artist friend, Rohan, and his Italian wife Guilia, hoping that Rohan can help Nulani develop her talent.
Nulani’s father is dead, killed by the conflict, burnt alive on a roundabout. Her mother ignores her, giving all her love and attention to Nulani’s brother Lucky Jim. There’s a shady uncle in the background, hovering as a dark but undisclosed threat. A local boy, a Tamil orphan whose family were slaughtered by the government soldiers, has his eye on Nulani, unaware of her growing affection for Theo.
As Theo starts to realise that the difference in his and Nulani’s ages might not be a barrier to the love that can redeem both their losses and pain, the two are torn apart. Finding the danger of life in Colombo unacceptable, Rohan and Guilia flee the conflict, trying to make a home in Venice. They lose contact with Nulani, she can’t find them and everyone thinks that Theo is dead. Even Rohan and Guilia start to lose each other despite being together. Spread around the world, can they ever find each other again? This is a tale of the pre-internet, pre-mobile phone era, one which reminds us how easy it once was to lose people and how hard it seems to be these days. The sense of fate playing with the key characters, putting obstacles in their path, finding ways to throw them back together again, is almost like a Greek tragedy.
Roma Tearne was an artist before she became a writer and perhaps that’s why one of the most outstanding aspects of the book is the way she writes about painting. There’s a gorgeous and detailed description of one of Nulani’s paintings of Theo which is so clear that the reader can’t help but picture the portrait in every little detail despite never seeing it. I can only guess that both Theo the writer and Nulani the painter are different aspects of Tearne herself.
They say you should write what you know and Tearne writes about Sri Lankan refugees. As a young child, she left Sri Lanka with her parents back in the 1960s. The first of her books that I read was ‘Brixton Beach’, a book with a female refugee setting up home in London and a story which would prove beyond all possible doubt that Tearne is willing to slaughter her characters regardless of how many pages her readers have invested in getting to know them. Her other novels all involve characters who’ve left Sri Lanka.
Tearne does gut-wrenching shock as well or better than any other writer I can think of. Twice in the final chapters I felt a physical shiver go through me when astonishing things happened after hundreds of pages of despair. Tearne builds up characters who become so real to us that we really care about them but she’s not afraid to cut some of them down in their prime and leave us bereaved by their loss. You think that only the minor characters can suffer and die but she’s an equal opportunity dispenser of death and destruction. Whether it’s natural death from malaria, targeted death by shooting or burning alive or the random destruction of an unwitting bomber, she pulls no punches in distributing devastation.
For those who need to understand the reason why the book is called ‘Mosquito’, these little killers crop up many times in the book. The most dangerous animal in the world is not the Great White Shark, a nasty big snake with fangs, a raging bull elephant or a short-sighted hippo – it’s a tiny little insect that transmits a killer disease. Whilst the war ebbs and flows, malaria is always in the background as a threat. But the passage that makes you really stop and think is when she describes the new mosquitos – women suicide bombers from the north, buzzing down to Colombo to kill themselves and take others with them.
Theo Samarajeeva is a writer who has lived abroad for many years before returning to make his home in his native country. He’s internationally famous for his book ‘Tiger Lily’, a deeply dark story set in the conflict but sympathetic to the Tamil minority. Theo is a man of the world who thinks that religion doesn’t really matter but whilst it might not matter to him, it certainly matters to those around him. He’s a Singhalese, considered a traitor by many of his Buddhist countrymen and an object of curiosity to their Tamil opponents.
Theo returns to the house he owned many years before. Professionally he’s a success with his books available world wide and with ‘Tiger Lily’ made into an acclaimed film but Theo has lost the only thing that mattered to him, his wife Anna. He hopes that returning to his beach house will help him find the peace that eludes him in Europe. On arrival he meets a local man, Sugi, who becomes his housekeeper and friend. Sugi warns him to take care, not to walk on the beach after curfew, not to draw attention to himself, but Theo doesn’t take advice.
Theo has nothing to lose and not much to live for until a local girl, Nulani Mendis, starts to hang about in his garden, hiding in the bushes and drawing Theo. The two become friends and he admires her talent, commissioning her to paint his picture, taking her to meet his artist friend, Rohan, and his Italian wife Guilia, hoping that Rohan can help Nulani develop her talent.
Nulani’s father is dead, killed by the conflict, burnt alive on a roundabout. Her mother ignores her, giving all her love and attention to Nulani’s brother Lucky Jim. There’s a shady uncle in the background, hovering as a dark but undisclosed threat. A local boy, a Tamil orphan whose family were slaughtered by the government soldiers, has his eye on Nulani, unaware of her growing affection for Theo.
As Theo starts to realise that the difference in his and Nulani’s ages might not be a barrier to the love that can redeem both their losses and pain, the two are torn apart. Finding the danger of life in Colombo unacceptable, Rohan and Guilia flee the conflict, trying to make a home in Venice. They lose contact with Nulani, she can’t find them and everyone thinks that Theo is dead. Even Rohan and Guilia start to lose each other despite being together. Spread around the world, can they ever find each other again? This is a tale of the pre-internet, pre-mobile phone era, one which reminds us how easy it once was to lose people and how hard it seems to be these days. The sense of fate playing with the key characters, putting obstacles in their path, finding ways to throw them back together again, is almost like a Greek tragedy.
Roma Tearne was an artist before she became a writer and perhaps that’s why one of the most outstanding aspects of the book is the way she writes about painting. There’s a gorgeous and detailed description of one of Nulani’s paintings of Theo which is so clear that the reader can’t help but picture the portrait in every little detail despite never seeing it. I can only guess that both Theo the writer and Nulani the painter are different aspects of Tearne herself.
They say you should write what you know and Tearne writes about Sri Lankan refugees. As a young child, she left Sri Lanka with her parents back in the 1960s. The first of her books that I read was ‘Brixton Beach’, a book with a female refugee setting up home in London and a story which would prove beyond all possible doubt that Tearne is willing to slaughter her characters regardless of how many pages her readers have invested in getting to know them. Her other novels all involve characters who’ve left Sri Lanka.
Tearne does gut-wrenching shock as well or better than any other writer I can think of. Twice in the final chapters I felt a physical shiver go through me when astonishing things happened after hundreds of pages of despair. Tearne builds up characters who become so real to us that we really care about them but she’s not afraid to cut some of them down in their prime and leave us bereaved by their loss. You think that only the minor characters can suffer and die but she’s an equal opportunity dispenser of death and destruction. Whether it’s natural death from malaria, targeted death by shooting or burning alive or the random destruction of an unwitting bomber, she pulls no punches in distributing devastation.
For those who need to understand the reason why the book is called ‘Mosquito’, these little killers crop up many times in the book. The most dangerous animal in the world is not the Great White Shark, a nasty big snake with fangs, a raging bull elephant or a short-sighted hippo – it’s a tiny little insect that transmits a killer disease. Whilst the war ebbs and flows, malaria is always in the background as a threat. But the passage that makes you really stop and think is when she describes the new mosquitos – women suicide bombers from the north, buzzing down to Colombo to kill themselves and take others with them.
August 20, 2022
‘Why should the world care, Sugi?’ he asked gently. ‘We aren’t important enough for the British any more. And unlike the Middle East, we have no oil. So we can kill each other and no one will notice. That’s why things will take longer than we think.’
Mosquito, set in Sri Lanka during its civil war period, tells us a story of few lives amidst the aftermath of colonialism. It brings in art amidst chaos. Brings hope amidst war. It’s a classic story of love in the post colonial civil war, blended with the raw beauty of art.
We make home, we hope to make home. A war, a difference destroys our homes like no storm or earthquake can do. Captured in the coconut-y sea beach land, we meet some people with a good taste of art. A writer, a painter absorbed in their works. Life, rather war happens, in their world.
With the story of the characters, unfolds the story of a country that is still carrying its bruises from colonialism. Their presence casts its shadow on this island. Still. I have been reading about the post-colonial period of many countries now. Sri Lanka is a near country and I knew it for its cricketers and only now, I am wondering how they played international cricket so brilliantly while their country was bleeding. The book served me as historical knowledge of civil war in a country and I nodded to the similarity most post-colonial countries faced. The British left, then born new hatred among each other. Indian subcontinent was divided among Hindu and Muslim conflicts, African countries were divided into different tribes killing each other, hatred formed in this part of the world too, in some other form. Fear and suspicion was the thing they lived off, it was the only diet they had had for years.
The writing is rich with beautiful observations and striking comparisons. So delightful to read. There was a scene about a traditional religious festival. People came to visit local temples and offer their prayers to the gods. The description captured me in awe, it resonated with our Bengal’s Manik Bandopadhay’s writing in the same sardonic tone, where he describes god living in rich, civilized colonies.
The hands of this many-handed god were empty apart from his spear. He looked neither right nor left. If he heard the prayers of the tormented he gave no sign. There were peacocks at his side and sunlight shone on his burnished anklets. Young girls brought him armfuls of offerings, walking miles in the boiling heat. Young men came carrying hope. He received each of them without a word.
The plot was building up, readers got familiar with the characters, the native land and culture, the conflicts and suddenly war changed the direction like a bomb has been exploded… I liked how the story didn't turn into a thriller, rather it was slow like life, but written at a quicker pace to avoid boredom.
I would keep some favorite lines from the book here, they display the sardonic writing quality of the author. I nodded and gave a pensive smile while reading them.
How had two thousand years of Buddhism come to this? A Cabinet minister was assassinated, seventeen members of the public injured, three killed on a bus. Glass rose like sea spray, shattering everywhere. But the radio stations still played baila music in a pretence of normality although no one knew what was normal any more.
‘There is no such thing as freedom,’ he wrote. ‘Nor do I want to have an ideology. I see no sense…To have an ideology means having laws; it means killing those who have different laws’.
‘they are not all savages here. There are savages everywhere, not just here.’
In the end, it is art that survives. In the end, no bullet can light up the world, art, love, hope- they bring the lights on. Such a wonderful read, a story about love, loss and hope. Thanks to my friend Barbara, this was both an enlightening and a lovely read for me!
March 10, 2011
This book draws you in slowly, creating the relationships- some tenuous, some quite powerful- between the characters stroke by stroke like a painting. The part of me that initially recoiled at the prospect of a relationship between a 44 year-old man and an 18 year-old girl came around so much that as the book came to a close, in my mind there was one way it had to end and I held my breath to the last page truly hoping it did. The plot doesn't so much push you along as guide you, making the jungles of Sri Lanka seemed an apt parallel for the story itself.
As the civil war ravaging this small island nation begins to move itself from background to foreground, I loved how the characters were all caught up in the maelstrom, each affected in their own way. The way Ms. Tearne (an artist herself before trying her hand at writing) seems to communicate through her characters how against the world and its machinations we are all powerless alone spoke to me. She pervades the novel with a sense that without those closest to us, we are lost. Left to wander alone until isolation threatens to suffocate us. Husbands and wives, lovers and friends all show this to be true in Mosquito.
This book is the second in my 2011 Monthly Reading List. The first left our group with decidely mixed feelings, but I am hoping that this one is more well-received. It has the rare ability to keep one's spirits hopeful despite the tortuous, violent and often explosive events occurring on the page. Even when death occurs, it comes quickly and without grand foreshadowing or sappy reminiscing. Like life, it comes without warning; the plot lumbers along without remorse.
I would highly recommend this book to most anyone, though fair warning the violence is real and unfiltered.
As the civil war ravaging this small island nation begins to move itself from background to foreground, I loved how the characters were all caught up in the maelstrom, each affected in their own way. The way Ms. Tearne (an artist herself before trying her hand at writing) seems to communicate through her characters how against the world and its machinations we are all powerless alone spoke to me. She pervades the novel with a sense that without those closest to us, we are lost. Left to wander alone until isolation threatens to suffocate us. Husbands and wives, lovers and friends all show this to be true in Mosquito.
This book is the second in my 2011 Monthly Reading List. The first left our group with decidely mixed feelings, but I am hoping that this one is more well-received. It has the rare ability to keep one's spirits hopeful despite the tortuous, violent and often explosive events occurring on the page. Even when death occurs, it comes quickly and without grand foreshadowing or sappy reminiscing. Like life, it comes without warning; the plot lumbers along without remorse.
I would highly recommend this book to most anyone, though fair warning the violence is real and unfiltered.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 24, 2020
A love story set during the horrific Sri Lankan civil war, Mosquito is at times beautiful, at others quite brutal. Theo is a writer of some renown, now in his mid forties, who decides to return to his home country after the murder of his wife and many years in Britain. He becomes friends with a servant and falls hopelessly in love with a shy, introverted 17 year old girl, Nulani, who herself has seen much horror. Just as their relationship starts to bloom the civil war interjects, separating them for many years amid torture and desperation.
I guess the elephant in the room here is the age gap between the two main characters. Nulani, for me, isn't a character written with a great deal of depth so I found this wealthy man in his mid forties seducing a girl barely out of childhood a little creepy. But overlooking that, Mosquito is a beautifully written book which reflects the pointlessness of war and the heartbreak of love lost excellently. As in any war, there are characters we think are going to be more pivotal to the plot who are killed off at surprising turns. The scenes in which Theo is captured and tortured are suitably nasty and, despite any misgivings I may have had about the relationship, he remains a character you root for. Most of the supporting cast are written well and the book itself is well paced and breezy to read, with a finale that wraps everything up in satisfying, if predictable fashion.
I guess the elephant in the room here is the age gap between the two main characters. Nulani, for me, isn't a character written with a great deal of depth so I found this wealthy man in his mid forties seducing a girl barely out of childhood a little creepy. But overlooking that, Mosquito is a beautifully written book which reflects the pointlessness of war and the heartbreak of love lost excellently. As in any war, there are characters we think are going to be more pivotal to the plot who are killed off at surprising turns. The scenes in which Theo is captured and tortured are suitably nasty and, despite any misgivings I may have had about the relationship, he remains a character you root for. Most of the supporting cast are written well and the book itself is well paced and breezy to read, with a finale that wraps everything up in satisfying, if predictable fashion.
May 10, 2021
This is one of the beautiful yet devastating book depicting the Sri Lankan Civil War and how it impacts the lives of the people psychologically, physically and emotionally and makes them altogether different people. Yet Roma finds hope amidst the heat and gloom and makes us root for the 50 year old Theo Samarajeeva through his capture, suffering and torture. Even if the end seems a tad feel-good escapist fare, the characters deserve it for the kind of perseverance they have shown through death and decay and also for the mustering up the will to plough through the tough times.
The writing is purposefully beautiful, as though coming from a writer who wants to make people look at her homeland as something that it can be, rather than what it was portrayed as. Whether this book can be the soothing balm over the healing wounds of the war-ravaged island is up to debate, but if this book could be viewed as a message of eventual defeat of cynicism, then this would have more than served its purpose.
The writing is purposefully beautiful, as though coming from a writer who wants to make people look at her homeland as something that it can be, rather than what it was portrayed as. Whether this book can be the soothing balm over the healing wounds of the war-ravaged island is up to debate, but if this book could be viewed as a message of eventual defeat of cynicism, then this would have more than served its purpose.
September 7, 2021
After a strong start, this lost its way and finished in pages of emoting where nothing much really happened. It took a great deal of effort to get to the end. Part of the problem was that the author killed off two of the main characters half way through the book, cutting off the reader's connection to the text. The main protagonists have glamorous lifestyles as top rank painters and writers, disconnected from the experience of most people who suffered during the conflict. Exactly how many people in Sri Lanka could just move to Venice, one of the most expensive cities on the planet, at the drop of a hat? How many people could move to the UK and get taken on by a top London art gallery, when the art scene is awash with talent (although I have to admit that Tracey Emin has broken through the talent barrier).
This book was interesting as an insight into the Sri Lankan civil war against the Tamil Tigers, and the motivation of the two sides. However, the generous helping of romantic gloop made it a less than enticing dish.
This book was interesting as an insight into the Sri Lankan civil war against the Tamil Tigers, and the motivation of the two sides. However, the generous helping of romantic gloop made it a less than enticing dish.
May 30, 2011
Stunning in its poignancy, lushness, and brutality. Theo is a 45 year old nationally renowned - and outspoken - writer who returns to his native Sri Lanka on the brink of civil war and meets 17 year old Nulani, whose drawings and paintings captivate him. They begin a complicated relationship, until violence escalates and he is kidnapped. She, believing him dead, is shepherded out of the country to England by Theo's closest friends, who subsequently lose track of her. Neither Theo nor Nulani forgets the other, though... the ending of this novel is breathtaking. Amaaazing novel, really. I'd never read Roma Tearne's work before, had never even heard of her actually (and, agreed, she's no Michael Ondaatje, if that's what you're looking for)...however, I will definitely be seeking out the rest of her body of work in the hopes that it is nearly as good as this novel is!
November 20, 2009
This is a book about loving. A book about hope and survival. About war, also indifference. It is an elegiac book, filled with optimism and awash with tenderness. All of those words are the author's own as she describes the novel being written by her protagonist, but they easily translate to describing this novel.
July 30, 2009
The underlying civil war kept me going and interested. The violence and torture was interesting. The little love story was shallow and vapid. Actually pretty much all the characters were underdeveloped and their interactions shallow and hokey.
September 5, 2011
This is an unexpected love story set in war torn Sri Lanka. It is one of my favorite fiction reads in the last ten years. I audibly gasped more than once while reading it; I was that moved emotionally.
April 13, 2018
Pican pican los mosquitos
pican con gran disimulo
unos pican en la cara
y otros pican en el...
Cuando fui a la colina
me dijeron cuerpo a tierra
como no les hice caso
me mandaron a la...
Mi hermanita toca el piano
con el profesor Pirulo
cada vez que se agachaba
le tocaba todo el...
Culpa de un malentendido
a la prima de ese buta
que tenía siete novios
la trataban de una...
- Aay!
- Que?
- Pero que no entiendes esto?
- Es que...
- Si es muy sencillo
- Pero es que casi no... tu viste...
- Nada más escucha
Publicaron en los diarios
algo que me dejó absorto
que a una niña de 11 años
le rompieron bien el...
Orden es lo que les falta
al vestir de las zendejas
que con los escotes nuevos
se les ven todas las...
Tentación es lo que falta
a una chica desprolija
que en las manifestaciones
le gusta tocar la...
Pídale al señor que cante
la canción una vez sola
pues al cantarla dos veces
ya empieza a romper las...
Boca dice que contrata
once jugadores nuevos
y la inchada le contesta
que no rompan más los...
Pican pican los mosquitos
pican con gran disimulo
- dónde?
unos pican en la cara
y otros pican en el...
- AAAAAHH!
Pican pican los mosquitos
pican con gran disimulo
unos pican en la cara
y otros pican en el...
Cuando fui a la colina
me dijeron cuerpo a tierra
como no les hice caso
me mandaron a la...
Mi hermanita toca el piano
con el profesor Pirulo
cada vez que se agachaba
le tocaba todo el...
Culpa de un malentendido
a la prima de ese buta
que tenía siete novios
la trataban de una...
- y el mosquito?
- se murió el mosquito!
pican con gran disimulo
unos pican en la cara
y otros pican en el...
Cuando fui a la colina
me dijeron cuerpo a tierra
como no les hice caso
me mandaron a la...
Mi hermanita toca el piano
con el profesor Pirulo
cada vez que se agachaba
le tocaba todo el...
Culpa de un malentendido
a la prima de ese buta
que tenía siete novios
la trataban de una...
- Aay!
- Que?
- Pero que no entiendes esto?
- Es que...
- Si es muy sencillo
- Pero es que casi no... tu viste...
- Nada más escucha
Publicaron en los diarios
algo que me dejó absorto
que a una niña de 11 años
le rompieron bien el...
Orden es lo que les falta
al vestir de las zendejas
que con los escotes nuevos
se les ven todas las...
Tentación es lo que falta
a una chica desprolija
que en las manifestaciones
le gusta tocar la...
Pídale al señor que cante
la canción una vez sola
pues al cantarla dos veces
ya empieza a romper las...
Boca dice que contrata
once jugadores nuevos
y la inchada le contesta
que no rompan más los...
Pican pican los mosquitos
pican con gran disimulo
- dónde?
unos pican en la cara
y otros pican en el...
- AAAAAHH!
Pican pican los mosquitos
pican con gran disimulo
unos pican en la cara
y otros pican en el...
Cuando fui a la colina
me dijeron cuerpo a tierra
como no les hice caso
me mandaron a la...
Mi hermanita toca el piano
con el profesor Pirulo
cada vez que se agachaba
le tocaba todo el...
Culpa de un malentendido
a la prima de ese buta
que tenía siete novios
la trataban de una...
- y el mosquito?
- se murió el mosquito!
August 22, 2018
Roma Tearne's Mosquito is a book that’s a bit under-the-radar and tough to find online (not to mention an SEO nightmare – Google Books’ description of the book reads: “Highlights the physical characteristics, habitat, and life cycle of mosquitoes. Discusses control measures and includes illustrations”).
It’s also a novel I cracked open with some skepticism, not because of its obscurity or even its awful purple cover, but because what little I knew about the book made it seem like a Sri Lankan Lolita. Set against a backdrop of the country’s recent civil war, Mosquito is the story of a romance between a writer named Theo and a young painter named Nulani. He’s a wealthy, worldly, and widowed British ex-pat; she’s an introverted and inexperienced high school student. Talk about a power imbalance.
But this book won me over despite that premise, largely on the strength of its beauty and thoughtfulness. On its surface, Mosquito has shades of ‘How Stella Got Her Groove Back:’ a broken character trades in modern life for the slow pace of the beach and discovers love and inspiration along the way. But Mosquito cuts much deeper than Terry McMillan’s chick lit – it’s a story, ultimately, about the pain of love and of being unloved. Characters are tortured not only by loneliness, but also by the vulnerability that comes from loving deeply. Watching as Theo and Nulani ricochet between different emotional states – opening themselves up, falling for each other, then shutting down to survive – made me think about love in my own life differently. Love isn’t expressed only through life’s highs, it’s also experienced in its lows – the dangers you fear, the separation you dread, the future you desperately desire to protect. And within that cerebral context, somehow Theo and Nulani’s May-December romance felt more pure than prurient.
Beyond being a book about love, this is also a book that nails this blog’s ‘prose and place’ theme. Mosquito revels in Sri Lanka’s lush coastal landscape – palms wilting in the heat, insects scuttling across tile, water glistening in the light of full moons, rain battering clapboard walls, and the sound of lapping tides. Life bends to the will of weather here (literally – still water begets mosquitos which spread malaria) and Tearne renders that weather as vividly as she does her human characters. At one point, for example, she describes the afternoon as “gelatinous with the heat.”
Additionally, the notion that where you live is a critical component of your identity and happiness courses through every page of Mosquito. It’s evident in how drawn Theo felt to Sri Lanka in spite of its looming dangers. It’s clear in the way Theo’s friend Rohan’s spirit died when he had to flee his home in Colombo for exile in Italy. And it feels particularly compelling when plot points hinge on the way place shapes us. For instance, Theo’s confidence that logic will prevail – something he learned living in London – serves only to hurt him in Sri Lanka, where logic holds no sway over unrest, war, and injustice.
While it didn’t make me want to catch the next plane to Sri Lanka (a book brimming with war, kidnapping, and murder tends to have that effect), Mosquito did make me want to hold the people I love a little closer. And for that feeling alone it’s worth searching through a million Amazon listings for books about actual mosquitos to find.
It’s also a novel I cracked open with some skepticism, not because of its obscurity or even its awful purple cover, but because what little I knew about the book made it seem like a Sri Lankan Lolita. Set against a backdrop of the country’s recent civil war, Mosquito is the story of a romance between a writer named Theo and a young painter named Nulani. He’s a wealthy, worldly, and widowed British ex-pat; she’s an introverted and inexperienced high school student. Talk about a power imbalance.
But this book won me over despite that premise, largely on the strength of its beauty and thoughtfulness. On its surface, Mosquito has shades of ‘How Stella Got Her Groove Back:’ a broken character trades in modern life for the slow pace of the beach and discovers love and inspiration along the way. But Mosquito cuts much deeper than Terry McMillan’s chick lit – it’s a story, ultimately, about the pain of love and of being unloved. Characters are tortured not only by loneliness, but also by the vulnerability that comes from loving deeply. Watching as Theo and Nulani ricochet between different emotional states – opening themselves up, falling for each other, then shutting down to survive – made me think about love in my own life differently. Love isn’t expressed only through life’s highs, it’s also experienced in its lows – the dangers you fear, the separation you dread, the future you desperately desire to protect. And within that cerebral context, somehow Theo and Nulani’s May-December romance felt more pure than prurient.
Beyond being a book about love, this is also a book that nails this blog’s ‘prose and place’ theme. Mosquito revels in Sri Lanka’s lush coastal landscape – palms wilting in the heat, insects scuttling across tile, water glistening in the light of full moons, rain battering clapboard walls, and the sound of lapping tides. Life bends to the will of weather here (literally – still water begets mosquitos which spread malaria) and Tearne renders that weather as vividly as she does her human characters. At one point, for example, she describes the afternoon as “gelatinous with the heat.”
Additionally, the notion that where you live is a critical component of your identity and happiness courses through every page of Mosquito. It’s evident in how drawn Theo felt to Sri Lanka in spite of its looming dangers. It’s clear in the way Theo’s friend Rohan’s spirit died when he had to flee his home in Colombo for exile in Italy. And it feels particularly compelling when plot points hinge on the way place shapes us. For instance, Theo’s confidence that logic will prevail – something he learned living in London – serves only to hurt him in Sri Lanka, where logic holds no sway over unrest, war, and injustice.
While it didn’t make me want to catch the next plane to Sri Lanka (a book brimming with war, kidnapping, and murder tends to have that effect), Mosquito did make me want to hold the people I love a little closer. And for that feeling alone it’s worth searching through a million Amazon listings for books about actual mosquitos to find.
February 28, 2018
An interesting story, and a window into Sri Lankan history... but I often didn't find the characters authentic. You have the main character, Theo, so totally infatuated with a girl that he can't think of or do anything but watch her, and then suddenly he's normal and barely aware of her presence when she starts painting at his home full time. You have some of his friends, living in the capital, ostensibly oblivious to the violent civil war raging in the countryside, who then suddenly are terrified and wanting to move. As someone who has lived as an expat in a foreign country, I find such obliviousness unimaginable, the unease would have been longstanding and always present, ratcheting up as the violence escalated. The book held my interest throughout, but I was often saying to myself, "But I thought Tearne said, and now she's saying....?" A distraction I found frustrating and disruptive.
November 19, 2017
Декілька днів мене повільно втягувало в читання, намагалася зрозуміти в чому сіль і що буде далі. Але потім, як море, що поглинає та своїми течіями віддаляє тебе все далі від берега, так і цей роман затягнув мене в обійми... І ось я стою босими ногами на нагрітому від сонця піску прекрасної Шрі-Ланки. І все бачу на власні очі: барви та колорит, всю красу природи, та бунтівні настрої війни, що розгорнулася на її просторах.
Здається мені, що нічого подібного раніше не читала. Поєднання гострої тривоги, що зависла над раєм на землі, та безмежних людських почуттів. Роман несе красу в мистецтві серед збіднілості та виснаженності, а головне - несе надію.
Залишилась приємно вражена.
Відправляється в мої фаворити, та ще довго буде на вустах)
Здається мені, що нічого подібного раніше не читала. Поєднання гострої тривоги, що зависла над раєм на землі, та безмежних людських почуттів. Роман несе красу в мистецтві серед збіднілості та виснаженності, а головне - несе надію.
Залишилась приємно вражена.
Відправляється в мої фаворити, та ще довго буде на вустах)
April 15, 2024
Mosquito provided me with the perfect reading recipe, combining descriptions of another country and culture with all of its colour and variety, with a snapshot of a time in history, plus some fascinating characters and a love story! Difficult topics were covered, and I was a little uncertain when I started whether or not this was the book for me. It was certainly a book of several parts, whilst we followed the various strands of the story in various directions. One strand stopped for a substantial period of time so that we were left wondering about where the story would go. A fascinating picture of a post-colonial nation at a particular time in its history, and of how some of its people felt obliged to forge lives for themselves elsewhere.
November 3, 2017
Set during the worse years of the Tamil Tiger insurgence in Sri Lanka this is a beautiful love story between the older man, Theo and the young and vulnerable Nulani. Set against the backdrop of brutality and violence their love shines through with hope and humanity.
Having lived in Sri Lanka during the last few years of the violence I can appreciated many of the settings, characters and the way they play out against each other.
Not an easy read - there are some quite graphic descriptions of violence, but worth the effort.
Having lived in Sri Lanka during the last few years of the violence I can appreciated many of the settings, characters and the way they play out against each other.
Not an easy read - there are some quite graphic descriptions of violence, but worth the effort.
November 19, 2017
Although the writing was often lovely the story was hard to read with a lot o detail about torture. I was frustrated that there was not more detail about the civil war in Sri Lanka. There was an expectation that the reader would understand this. I also did not really get the relationship between Nulani and Theo and why with such a great age difference and little real understanding of what made Nulani tick ( besides her art) why this was supposed to be a great love. In the end this book left me flat.
December 15, 2020
Sometimes I really enjoyed the language; at other times it felt stilted. As for the story and characters, they never particularly convinced and engaged me. And, unless I misunderstood something, there seems to be a mistake in the timeline: at the opening of the story it is 1996, and Nulani is 16, which means that she was born in 1980. But later we learn that her father was killed in the late 70s, and the implication is that she was a young child at the time. Hmm, anyone else notice that or can put me right?
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