V. V. Ganeshananthan

What sparked Love Marriage?
When I wrote the opening pages, I did not know that they were the beginning of a novel. The first bit seemed to almost write itself. I took it to a creative writing class in which the teacher encouraged us to read our work aloud. My classmates wanted to hear more from that voice. So did I. So I suppose the characters sparked the story—I was able to follow them, page by page.

Please set the scene of the novel for us.
The story is told in the first-person voice of Yalini, the daughter of two Sri Lankan Tamil immigrants who met and married in the U.S. At the story's beginning, she is summoned to Toronto to help care for her dying uncle, Kumaran, a former member of the militant Tamil Tigers.

For the first time, she is forced to face her family's complicated history. As her uncle'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. As Kumaran’s death and his daughter’s politically motivated nuptials edge closer, Yalini, too, has to decide how the family's past affects her own relationships and future.


Do you have a particular attachment to any of the characters or places in the novel? If so, which one(s) and why?
Toronto has a substantial Sri Lankan Tamil population. There is nothing comparable in the U.S. I have visited as a child and as an adult, and am always interested to see the rich and varied communities and voices there. And of course I love Sri Lanka, which unfortunately has seen so much violence and political turmoil over the past few decades.


What are you reading at the moment?
I just reread Unaccustomed Earth, by Jhumpa Lahiri, because I recently interviewed her for an event at a literary festival. I'm about to start a book called Out Stealing Horses, by Per Petterson, which my editor recommended to me.


What are you working on now?
I am working on a second novel, which has some similar themes — morality and mortality among them. It covers a shorter time period. It has some characters who are Sri Lankan, and others who are not.