Civil War Stories: Funny Boy and The Island of Missing Trees
The last week or two here’s been a bit of a post colonial civil war theme running through my reading and watching Funny boy Streaming on Netflix, this 2020 film is a coming of age story for a Tamil boy in post colonial Sri Lanka during the civil war. and based on the novel by Shyam Selvadurai (now on my reading list!). Arjie is already a boy who doesn’t fit and as the tensions begin to mount between the Singhalese and Tamils, he finds that more than one of his identities are under attack. Played by two actors and jumping back and forward between the boy and young man this is both a sweet story about a boy finding out who he is alongside a pretty brutal story about bigotry, hatred and violence. Shocking statistic at the final credits that over 1 million Tamils became refugees during this period. Definitely worth a watch. The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak Another story about a civil war, dealing with love and loss, but this time in novel form, in pos...