G is for V.V. Ganeshananthan

V.V. Ganeshananthan is the author of "Love Marriage," a novel set in Sri Lanka (the author is an American of Sri Lankan ancestry).  The title "Love Marriage" refers to the fact that there were basically two kinds of marriage in Sri Lanka: the Arranged Marriage, and the Love Marriage.  Sometimes the arranged marriage would grow into the love marriage.  Sometimes.Ms. Ganeshananthan graduated from Harvard and began writing the book as part of her senior thesis.  She now teaches at the University of Michigan, where she is the Zell Visiting Professor of Creative Writing.In "Love Marriage," Yalini, the daughter of Sri Lankan immigrants who left their collapsing country and married in America, finds herself caught between the history of her ancestors and her own modern world.  But when she is summoned to Toronto to help care for her dying uncle, Kumaran, a former member of the militant Tamil Tigers, she is forced to see that violence is not a relic of the Sri Lankan past, but very much a part of her Western present.While Kumaran’s loved ones gather around him to say goodbye, Yalini traces her family’s roots—and the conflicts facing them as ethnic Tamils—through a series of marriages. Now, as Kumaran’s death and his daughter’s politically motivated nuptials edge closer, in the tradition of her family, Yalini too must decide where she stands. (from www.vasugi.com)