The Last Brother, by Nathacha Appanah

The Last Brother is by far the best novel that I've read so far this year. It tells the story of Raj, a young Mauritian boy, and David, a Jewish boy from Prague who's being detained in the Beau-Bassin prison on Mauritius during the Second World War. Fleeing Europe along with 1,500 other Jews on the Atlantic, 10-year old David was turned away from Palestine because he didn't have the appropriate immigration papers, and sent to Mauritius, then a British Colony, where he was imprisoned.

Raj meets David at the prison when he delivers his father's lunch. A guard at the prison, Raj's father is demeaned at work, taking out his anger against Raj and his mother at night. Raj is lonely, having lost both of his brothers in a flash flood, and he becomes attached to David, overcoming cultural and language barriers. After a cyclone causes significant damage to the island, David escapes the prison and comes home with Raj. After hiding David there for a few days, Raj becomes afraid that his father will find out and convinces David to run away with him. They walk for three days, getting lost in the jungle and hiding from prison guards. David gets sick and on the third day dies from his illness, only hours before they are found by the guards (this is not a spoiler; we learn early on that David dies young). The novel is narrated by an elderly Raj, who only learned the true facts of what happened on Mauritius many years later, when he reads a newspaper article about Jews who returned to visit the Jewish cemetery where David and others were buried.

Although very short, this novel touches on many themes: family love, parental love, abusive fathers, the friendship of young companions, the tragedy of Jewish exiles during the Second World War, and more. The writing is wonderful, and the translation is superb. Everything rang true. Author Nathacha Appanah is incredibly talented. According to the author's biographical information on the back cover, she is "a French-Mauritian of Indian origin" and worked as a journalist before becoming a novelist. This is her fourth novel, and was published in The Lannan Translation Series, which funds "the translation and publication of exceptional literary works," according to the series page near the end of the book. Anyone who enjoys historical or literary fiction would love this book.

Nathacha Appanah. The Last Brother. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Graywolf Press, 2011. 164 pages. ISBN 9781555975753. Uncorrected Proof.