Mosquito — Roma Tearne

Shortlisted for the Costa (Whitbread) 2007 First Novel Award

Set adrift by the recent death of his wife, Theo Samarajeeva abandons his comfortable writer’s life in London and returns to Sri Lanka, his war-torn homeland. There he finds himself slipping into friendship with Nulani, a talented and enigmatic young artist—a friendship that blossoms into love. Under the threat of a rising terrorist insurgency, their affair offers a glimmer of hope in a country on the brink of destruction.

But when the insurgency explodes, their precarious world is torn apart. Theo is held captive and stripped of everything he once held dear. Nulani is forced into exile. No one, it seems, is safe; only the sea and the land remain breathtakingly lovely. As the country descends into a morass of violence and hatred, the tragecy of civil conflict spreads like a poison among friends and lovers sickened by the fac of war. Ultimately, each of them will be tested in the most terrible ways.

By turns heartbreaking and uplifting, Mosquito is a first novel of remarkable beauty and compelling power.