“In The Beach at Galle Road Joanna Luloff portrays, with exquisite passion and restraint, the troubled history of Sri Lanka. Writing from the point of view of young and old, Sri Lankans and Americans, civilians and soldiers, Luloff takes us deep into a country and a culture. Together these wonderful stories form an intricate web in which we, her readers, are happily caught. The Beach at Galle Road is a wise and profoundly moving debut.”
–Margot Livesey, author of The Flight of Gemma Hardy

In her debut, Luloff weaves a montage of stories into a cohesive whole as she explores the roles of tradition and family and the destructive power of war through the lives of each character…

Full review

Luloff, a Peace Corps volunteer in Sri Lanka in the 1990s, has written an engaging and thought-provoking collection of interconnected stories which shed a very personal light on the civil war in that country. By means of her vibrant characters, the author conveys a real sense of the fragile state in which Sri Lanka existed during the nearly 25 years in which the majority Sinhalese and the minority Tamils fought for control of the government. One story focuses on Janaki, whose sister travels from a refugee camp in the north, where most of the fighting took place, to live with her and her husband, a Tamil sympathizer now missing. Sam, an English teacher with the Peace Corps, falls in love with one of his students from the north — which comes to affect his own safety. Lucy, another Peace Corps volunteer leaves the south and joins a UN group administering to refugees in Jaffna, many of whom have lost family members to the war. Woven together, these stories reveal the realities behind the headlines, and provide a gripping read.