Joanna Luloff (Sri Lanka 1996-98) to Read at Harvard Book Store

Joanna Luloff (Sri Lanka 1996-98) will be reading from her interwoven collection of stories The Beach at Galle Road at the Harvard Book Store on Tuesday, October 23. This is her first book. Joanna Luloff received her BA from Vassar College and her MFA from Emerson College, and her PhD in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Missouri. Her fiction has appeared in The Missouri Review, Confrontation Magazine, and New South.

The basic theme of this book, which is being published this month by Algonquin Books, is that when the rumors of civil war between the ruling Sinhalese and the Tamils in the northern sector of Sri Lanka reach those who live in the south, somehow it seems not to be happening in their own country. At least not until Janaki’s sister, Lakshmi, now a refugee whose husband has disappeared, comes back to live with her family. And Sam, an American Peace Corps worker who boards with Janaki’s family, falls in love with one of his students, a young girl from the north, he, too, becomes acutely aware of the dangers that exist for anyone who gets drawn into the conflict, however marginally.

The Beach at Galle Road, according to the jacket cover, “explores themes of memory and identity amid the consequences of the Sri Lankan civil war. From different points of view, across generations and geographies, it pits the destructive power of war against the resilient power of family, individual will, and the act of storytelling itself.”

In other words, it is the kind of book an RPCV would write.

See Joanna’s website JoannaLuloff.com

Joanna will be reading next at the Elliott Bay Books in Seattle, Washington on November 27, 2012.

Check out Joanna’s fiction. She is a woman of considerable talent.