With the civil war in Sri Lanka still resounding in recent news, Joanna Luloff’s The Beach at Galle Road resonates even louder.  The interconnecting stories illustrate how experience can link people together, even as the country around them is being torn apart.  The book has been recently named as a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Holiday title.  Discover director Miwa Messer wrote about their selection:

“One of the real pleasures of my job is watching the selection committee readers talk about the books they love – faces literally light up, and hands fly about in the air… And that’s exactly what happened as the readers were talking about what they’d read in Joanna Luloff’s debut, The Beach at Galle Road, a collection of linked short stories so elegantly composed, and so full of story – hers are stories that feel as though they could contain entire novels, not unlike the stories in previous Discover selections Brief Encounters with Che Guevara and Interpreter of Maladies – that we’re still talking about them… Part of Luloff’s luminous, heart-breaking work was informed by her Peace Corps posting to Sri Lanka… but the rest, well, that’s pure art, and why we can’t wait to read more of her work in the years to come.”

Joanna has written an insightful essay featured on the Discover website, “Narrowing the Distance Between ‘Our’ and ‘Their'” exploring the subtle ways seemingly disparate people and narratives connect and intersect in the unbordered space of the hospital. ”