Teen/YA

SJ Sindu

Featured Title: Tall Water

Genre: teen-ya

Author: SJ Sindu

Tall Water

THE ASIAN/PACIFIC AMERICAN AWARD YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE HONOR BOOK!

From Stonewall Honor–winning writer SJ Sindu, author of Shakti, and celebrated illustrator Dion MBD comes a powerful coming-of-age teen graphic novel that follows one girl’s journey to Sri Lanka to reconnect with her long-lost mother during the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004. Perfect for fans of Persepolis and Almost American Girl.

Ever since she turned sixteen, Nimmi has wanted to see her mother. Though she has a loving but overprotective father and a budding relationship, she yearns to travel to Sri Lanka to confront the mother who refused to leave the island during a war, not even for Nimmi’s sake. Her father is going back for the first time as a reporter on assignment, but he refuses to take her, deeming Sri Lanka too dangerous.

But then Nimmi’s mother appears to her in a dream, asking her to come find her, and Nimmi knows she must go. Her father is livid when he sees her at baggage claim, but by then it’s too late, and he reluctantly agrees to help Nimmi make contact with her mother. In Sri Lanka, Nimmi tags along with her father and his guide, past checkpoints and armed soldiers and increasing hints of the war that rages there.

However, the day after Christmas, disaster strikes and a tsunami ravages the island. Stranded amid the devastation and destruction, can Nimmi reunite with her mother? Through her journey, Nimmi might just learn that the person she most needed to find was herself.

About SJ Sindu

SJ Sindu is a Tamil diaspora author of two literary novels (“Marriage of a Thousand Lies,” which won the Publishing Triangle Edmund White Award; and “Blue-Skinned Gods,” which was an Indie Next Pick and a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award), two hybrid chapbooks (“I Once Met You But You Were Dead,” which won the Split Lip Turnbuckle Chapbook Contest; and “Dominant Genes,” which won the Black Lawrence Press Black River Chapbook Contest), two forthcoming graphic novels (“Shakti” and “Tall Water”), and one collection of short stories (“The Goth House Experiment,” which won The Story Prize Spotlight Award). SJ holds a Ph.D. in Creative Writing from Florida State University and teaches at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Instagram: @sjsindu