n the summer of 2009, the leader of the Tamil Tigers was killed, bringing to a bloody end the stubborn and complicated civil war in Sri Lanka. For nearly thirty years it had stretched its fingers: into the bustle of Colombo, through Buddhist monasteries scattered across the island, up the soft hills of central Sri Lanka, down the curves of the eastern coast near Batticaloa and Trincomalee, and over the stark, hot north. Samanth Subramanian gives us an extraordinary account of this great modern conflict and the lives it changed. Taking us to the ghosts of summers past, he draws out the story of Sri Lanka today—an exhausted, disturbed society, still caught in the embers. This Divided Island is a harrowing and humane investigation by one of India’s finest narrative journalists.