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A journlaist she is, but a novelist she will never be. The book contains some interesting stories including her escape from Indian Peacekeepers, covering the Sri Lanka riots and smuggling a boy out of Tiger held Batticaloa. she did not want to ask difficult questions of the LTTE leader. Pratap has a self-indulgent style which is sometimes painful to read.
Obviously these comments seem to overlook Prabhakharan's moral autism.Finally, Pratap throws her credibility and impartiality into question when she says, "I shared the Tigers' vision of their destiny." (p.121). For example, she tries to set up contrasts between peace and war (p.146), family and the destruction of family (p.4 onwards), etc, but these attempts are too heavy handed and lack the subtlety required to establish the kind of atmosphere that Pratap is after. In short, Pratap doesn't have the writing chops to be able to produce the prose that is necessary. Island of Blood is a satisafactory account of some of the events that have shaped Pratap's lengthy career as a journalist. It is okay to be in favour of a political group, but one must be very careful when one is a journalist. The epilogue is entirely an exercise in shameless self-promotion.Finally, a lot could be said about the moral aptitude of the text, but I will say just this: At one point Pratap says that she did not want to "put Prabhakaran in the spotlight", i.e.
Yet when confronted with the Sinhalese nationalist Premadasa Udagampola she says to him, "That gun is not going to stop me from asking tough questions." (p.111) They are both killers, so why does Pretap shy away from grilling one, but not the other.This is an important point because if (as Pretap herself asserts in the epilogue) she is engaged in an ethical project, then she must be consistent in her investigations and interviews. There are other cases of moral confusion: for example, she is praisworthy of Prabhakharan's technical skill and charisma and finally, after finding that he has a penchant for Chinese takeaway says, "Surely he is entitled to some good food." (p.123).
Pratap seems to have no basis for her support and comes across as charmed by Prabhakaran and his militant (some would say terrorist) organization.In conclusion, this is an interesting book. The book, however, is deeply flawed.
She goes onto say, "Needless to say, this endeared me to the Tigers." What she means to say is that 'the Tigers were endeared towards me", but she gets things back to front. Secondly, there is a narcisstitic element to Pratap's writing that does not make the reader sympathetic to her.
Here are a few extracts: "Akbar had planted the seeds of my reputation as a daring, fearless journalist" (p.52), "But crisis always transforms me into Ms Professional." (p.127) (She repeats the mantra that she is 'Ms Professional' numerous times, "I guess I'm tough." (p.129) and so on. But is this a Freudian slip.
Essential if one is interested in Pratap's journalism, but if one wants a critical account of the war in Sri Lanka (or the other conflicts for that matter) one would best look elsewhere.
It seems to me more an excessive obsession of a visionary than the real wish of the Tamil minority in Sri Lanka.I recommend reading this book, in a critical mode and without great expectations. She describes the fight for Tamil Eelam as a romantic fight for freedom and justice.
Luckily I realized that being so obviously disgusting a style it took not so much effort to ignore that part and focus only on the information about her experiences as journalist, in the same way that you get accustomed to the noise of cars in the street.Anita Pratap has interviewed on several occasions to Prabhakaran, leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and has lived from close range the anti-Tamil incidents happened in Colombo in July 1983 and the situation in Jaffna during the late 80s. First I must say that I have read only the five chapters dedicated to Sri Lanka, which makes about half of the edition for this country (Viyitha Yapa Publications).I was just about to give up the book after a few pages because of Anita Pratap's style: it is completely annoying for absolutely self-centered and narcissist.
In my case, my previous information was strongly biased to the Singhalese side, and therefore I thanked the opposite view, though I absolutely don't agree with her fan-like attitude towards the guerrilla leader. Her experiences are valid and provide interesting information to understand the evolution of the Singhalese-Tamil conflict.
The same as you remove the stylistic noise you must read it carefully since she is far from objective when it comes to Prabhakaran and the conflict. Unfortunately reality is different, and although I don't know enough about the origins of the conflict, its costs for innocent Singhalese and Tamil citizens are unjustifiable.
Unfortunately there are not as many books about this conflict and the Sri Lankan history of the 80s and 90s as there are for other conflicts.
Let me argue why.First, there is a stylistic problem. Now to her content: deeply flawed in it. While her hair raising attempts to interview Prabhakaran make for interesting reading, she's hardly ruthless or even unbiased in questioning him. Those who suffered under him, including LTTE leader like Mahatiya, or under Tamilians or Sinhalese are given no agency. And there's a hint of family politics where she constantly degrades her husband's son Marcus as a boorish sulking 18 year old whereas her boy is bright, sparkling and witty. Their work is imbued with both a sense of humility and an understanding of the larger context within which they've reported.
Pratap is hugely self centred- her journalistic endeavours centre around her, and her alone; her subjects are there to make her sense of empathy evident, and to remind her how important her son is.That's the other problem with this book: her son. He's everywhere. I have to admit that as a student of history and political science, who is quite familiar with the sri lanka question, this book thoroughly disappointed me. But the idea of such a book is to leave it humbled, to feel that one's own problems are superficial in the face of so much plight. Such a device used in one chapter is fine, but used repeatedly sounds like a lack of imagination. She seems utterly enamoured of Prabhakaran and devotes most of the book to him. This book doesn't let you do that, simply because Pratap, instead of subtly presenting this argument, or letting the reader absorb the horrors of what she is saying, just keeps hammering this message in, thereby detracting from it.
Third, each of the chapters have the same setting. I am familar with a number of journalists who write autobiographical-political works- Fergal Keane, Kate Adie, John Simpson and so on. One leaves with the sense of Prabhakaran as the 'messiah of Sri Lankan Tamils' whereas in reality, while he was once a true hero, much of that aura has faded- he's now merely a terrorist who can't come to term with democratic politics and whose bloody politics only shames and demeans the cause he tries to promote. It's dirty linen that need not have been washed in public. She begins by describing something totally out of context, like a luxurious holiday or a car drive, and then something triggers off a memory of Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Bangladesh.wherever, and she plunges into that story. Pratap's inability to see through Prabhakaran makes this book less than balanced.The bits on dowry, the Latur quake and the flood in Bangladesh are well written. My advice: go read Letter to Daniel, and Letters Home by Fergal Keane or John Simpson's three part autobiography if you want magnificient journalistic accounts from some of the world's most troubled regions.
Anita Pratap gives an exclusive view of LTTE and its leader, Mr.Prabhakaran. There is no journalist other than Anita that has so much access to LTTE and have given an inside look into the mind of world's most elusive man, Prabhakarn. She has taken extreme step to visit all the hot spots of the Indian Subcontinent. Her instincts about LTTE were correct when she met them in 1986.
She writes with great impact telling horror stories but still managing to find a fleck of beauty that emerges in her own life from the experience.Pratap writes about dowry killings, Taliban rule and abuse, tribal wars and atrocites, class prejudices, poor people and abused children in areas like Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and India. I picked up this book not realizing the impact it contained. These stories are courageous and bold and horribly real at the same time. Anita Pratap is a journalist who relentlessly pursues her stories throughout war torn areas. As a woman she is inspirational and as a fact finder a bull-dog who gets her story done. Your heart will ache for the families that witness the horror of war killings and the pain of losing all that they own. This book will make you re-think your idea of sadness.
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