A Long Watch

Book excerpt: A Long Watch is the story of the highest-ranking prisoner taken by the Tamil Tigers during Sri Lanka's civil war, a naval officer pulled from a dark ocean after a battle at sea. For eight years Commodore Boyagoda lived at close quarters with his declared enemy, his imprisonment punctuated by extended conversations with his jailers and scratch games of cricket played in jungle clearings. Throughout, he observed his captors and fellow prisoners acutely, and with discreet empathy for the lives of others undone by war. This is a rare first-hand account of a close encounter between the protagonists of the war. Refusing sensationalism, it offers a statement of human complexity amid the polarized narratives of a brutal conflict.