Vanni: Based on Firsthand Accounts of the Sri Lankan Conflict Benjamin Dix (University of London) 9781637790618

A village in the crossfire of civil war. A family searching for safety.

In the tradition of Maus, Palestine, and Persepolis, Vanni is a graphic novel documenting the human side of the conflict between the Sri Lankan government and the "Tamil Tigers." Told from the perspective of a single family, it takes readers through the horrors and life-changing decisions individuals are forced to make when caught up in someone else's war.

Set in the northern region of Sri Lanka, which was devastated by the civil war, this graphic novel follows the Ramachandran family as they flee their home after the 2004 tsunami and move from one displacement camp to the next, seeking an ever-elusive safe haven and struggling to keep each other alive. Inspired by Benjamin Dix's experience working in Sri Lanka for the United Nations during the war, Vanni draws on more than four years of meticulous research, official reports, and first-hand interviews with refugees. Elegantly drawn by Lindsay Pollock, it depicts heroic acts of kindness and horrific acts of violence, memorializing the experiences of the Tamil civilians against the forces that seek to erase their memory.

Benjamin Dix is the Founding Director of PositiveNegatives and a Senior Fellow at SOAS, University of London. He was based in Tamil Tiger-controlled Vanni, Sri Lanka, from 2004-2008.

Lindsay Pollock is a freelance illustrator and comics writer. He is a senior artist at PositiveNegatives, where he has illustrated a number of testimonial comics that have appeared on the BBC and have been exhibited at the Nobel Peace Centre.

"In following the triumphs and travails of ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances, Dix and Pollock communicate their message with harrowing clarity: war extends far beyond the boundaries of the battlefield."

-Publishers Weekly

"If you don't know much about the hardships in Sri Lanka, this is an amazing primer in that the history imparted [is] not separated from personal tolls it took on those swept up in it. Altogether, Vanni is an immensely impressive, and utterly heartbreaking achievement."

-John Seven, Comics Beat

"The pictures and the narrative are so graphic that readers will not be able to forget what they have seen and read. That, of course, is Dix's aim, and he has succeeded."

-John Elliott, Asia Sentinel

"This is an astounding and heart-aching work that screams to the world thanks especially to the illustration work of Lindsay Pollock, who manages to capture the tapestry of suffering with sweeping visuals of the devastation, while also drawing the reader in on the intimate circumstances of the characters."

-Beat Staff, Comics Beat

"Vanni is an extraordinary graphic novel, palpably created with equal amounts of compassion, sensitivity and intelligence. It has no political agenda. It valorises no one and neither does it take pleasure in finding catharsis through anyone's victimhood. Yet it is unflinching at the same time, depicting the most heartwrenching events. It does so commendably, without resorting to war-pornographic manipulation."

-Sharanya Manivannan, Open the Magazine

"Vanni is a powerful commentary on the unimaginable sufferings of ordinary people in a war zone."

-Faizal Khan, Financial Express

"Is it possible to depict this agony on paper and make the reader feel torn? Vanni does just that."

-Anjana Shekar, The News Minute

"Many voices must speak for a nation to be healthy; many versions of its story must be told. Vanni is a thoughtful place to start."

-Deshan Tennekoon, The Caravan

"At nearly 260 intricately crafted pages Vanni is a powerful and thorough examination of events that is never an easy read but is always a crucially important one."

-Andy Oliver, Broken Frontier

"The full story of the 2009 war in Sri Lanka has largely been ignored by the global press and international society. This graphic novel is telling the story to a new audience and simultaneously telling it in new ways to the few that already knew it. This Vanni story needs to be heard in order to avoid it happening again."

-Liv Torres, General Secretary, Nobel Peace Center

"The story of the 2009 war in Sri Lanka in which tens of thousands of Tamil civilians were brazenly and brutally killed is rapidly being buried by powerful countries with strategic and business interests in the region. This book seeks to unbury those terrible, sordid secrets and place them in clear view for the world to see."

-Arundhati Roy, author of The God of Small Things