A Passage North

 by Anuk Arudpragasam

 An interesting book that could easily win this years booker.
At one level nothing much happens. The carer of a grandmother in Colombo dies in the North of the country and the grandson goes to the funeral. 
This simple premise is the canvas for some beautiful writing about the process of growing old and the working of memory. It is also an examination of how a country deals with civil war. In a particularly memorable section he writes about a documentary about two young women who are part of an elite suicide squad in the tamil tigers. This real documentary (that I have subsequently watched) is as haunting in his description as it is in the actual watching. 
The only parts of the book that did not work for me is where the protagonist examines an old brief love affair he had. So what I felt. As for the rest 9/10