Hachette India launches ‘Ruins,’ stunning literary debut novel by Rajith Savanadasa

Hachette India has announced the launch of ‘Ruins,’ the stunning literary debut novel by Rajith Savanadasa.

Savanadasa was born in Sri Lanka and now lives in Melbourne. He was shortlisted for the Asia-Europe Foundation short story prize in 2013, the Fish Publishing short story prize in 2013 and received a Wheeler Centre Hotdesk Fellowship in 2014. Rajith also runs Open City Stories, a website documenting the lives of a group of asylum seekers. ‘Ruins’ is his first novel.

A moving story that evocatively portrays how war affects a family and friendships well after the worst is over. 

Savanadasa’s fresh and stirring voice is a must-read for fans of Zadie Smith and Rohinton Mistry.

In the pent-up heat of Colombo, piece by piece, a family comes apart. In the restless streets, crowded waiting rooms and glittering nightclubs of Colombo, five family members find their bonds stretched to breaking point in the aftermath of the Sri Lankan civil war. 

Latha, the family’s servant of two decades, questions her allegiances following the tragic death of her nephew. Anoushka, a sixteen-year-old high-school student, tries to win back a friend while keeping her punk-rock credentials hidden from her parents…

Lakshmi, a proud matriarch, is haunted by images of missing boys while struggling with the selfish disregard of her own children…

Niranjan, recently returned from Australia, is ready to get his start-up off the ground but keeps getting distracted by stoner friends and petty squabbles…

And Mano, the head of the family, feels increasingly impotent under the pressure of government intimidation and his wife’s scorn…

As the five leave Colombo to travel to an ancient city, the generations collide and long-held prejudices are revealed. For this family, with one foot in the old way of life and one firmly in the new, nothing can ever be what it once was.

Praise for ‘Ruins’:

‘Distinct and convincing, Ruins heralds the arrival of a gifted new talent in fiction.’ – Books+Publishing

‘A rich and colourful story of family and country, its complexity revealed in layers.’ – Inga Simpson, author of the critically acclaimed Where the Trees Were.