In 2022, Sui Annukka won the Women's Prize Trust Discoveries competition for her novel-in-progress.

She grew up in London and Colombo, and regards writing as "a lifelong conversation with parts of myself that are mostly invisible to the world". She admits: "In more ways than I can say, writing has saved me."

Part of her prize was a commission to write a piece for Audible. And this is it. The Mother Sun, published just this year, was written as a novella-length audio-book, and that's the format it's exclusively available in (for now at least).

It's brilliantly narrated by Nimmi Harasgama, and it is indeed a good listen. The author listened to as many audio-books as she could while she was writing, taking note of what worked and what didn't. She has a drama background, and thought in terms of scenes, rather than chapters.


Galle, Sri Lanka, 2010

The key person we're following is Surya (the name means sun). She's a young Sri Lankan woman who has faced more than her fair share of trials. But life seems to be looking up. She's doing well in her marketing career, largely thanks to the generosity of her boss, who's a far-sighted and kind woman. Their relationship is on the cusp of expanding out of the realm of the professional into something more intimate. And now Surya is being sent to represent the firm at a marketing conference in London.

As well as offering her a great professional opportunity, this trip also gives her the chance to fulfil an ambition that has increasingly been taking hold of her. Seventeen years previously, she acted as surrogate mother for a British couple. She was paid for this service (illegal in Sri Lanka), but at the time, her understanding of the agreement (brokered by middle-men) was that it wasn't just a financial transaction, but rather the beginning of a genuine relationship. The couple spent time with her during her gestation period; they included her. And they promised to share photos and news of the son that Surya was growing inside her. But they didn't. They took the baby, turned the page, and left Surya to work through her frazzled emotions. Now, tormented by other setbacks and losses, she is desperate to see the boy she bore. Just see him... Nothing else...

Of course, "just seeing" the 17-year-old Rafe doesn't do it for her. In a series of fundamentally unwise moves, she befriends him. And when he accidentally finds out the truth (because he's bound to, right?), everyone's world is turned upside down.



Pluses:

As well as being enjoyable, this is a book that is full of insights on Sri Lanka, although I guess it's fair to say that it's Sri Lanka as mediated by someone with an inside-outside gaze. As Sui says: "Writing in English, about characters who don't necessarily always talk to each other in English, I am acting as something akin to a translator or channel. This is challenging because as a reader/listener you want access to the interiority of a character, which I feel can only be expressed in the language they think in. And in this instance, I can't side-step the issue that I am writing as a British author of Sri Lankan heritage, rather than a Sinhala-speaking, Sri Lankan author. My gaze, whilst not white, is inevitably, western."

When the book was complete, she tells her mother that she's concerned Sri Lankans won't like it. "Why did you write a book that Sri Lankans are not going to like?" her mother wants to know... But she gives Mum a printout, and it gets the tick of approval. "Though she thought there was far too much swearing in it: 'Sri Lankans don’t swear like that.' She did not mention the lesbian stuff, or the political stuff. But she can’t wait to recommend it to the relations. I can live with that."

So, through the eyes of our lead protagonist, we learn, for example, about overseas workers (out of financial necessity, Surya's mother and brother both had to find employment beyond the shores of their home country).



We also learn about surrogacy. Living in Colombo between the ages of seven and fourteen (so we're talking the 1980s), Sui recalls hearing about this issue: "At the time I was aware of the adults around me whispering about rumours of a baby farm that had been set up not far from where we lived. Girls from poor villages were, allegedly, being imprisoned there and forced to carry babies for European couples. I remember being horrified by the idea."

Surya isn't "forced", except by circumstances (she needs money to have any hope of gaining a tertiary qualification), but it is ultimately a traumatizing experience. Researchers note that it can be "a dehumanising and disempowering process for the woman", and this finding -- "that a majority of both known and unknown surrogate mothers expected to have some involvement in the children’s lives, further demonstrating the unfair and unequal footing that is forced on the surrogate mother through the illusion of choice" -- is exactly the eventuality Surya struggles with. She is initially required by the fixer to say she has already borne children (she hasn't), and when the British couple find out the deception, they renegotiate the price... We can see how the whole business has all ended up with a nasty taste that Surya couldn't have predicted.

The need to pay for private tertiary education has arisen because Surya's first attempt to gain a degree (for which her mother had painstakingly saved up money in Kuwait) was derailed by the ragging custom that blights public universities. Surya knows people whose lives have been ruined by the humiliation of ragging, and when she intervenes to save a room-mate, she succeeds in protecting her, but knows she can never go back. This scourge is not yet consigned to the past in Sri Lanka, unfortunately. Researchers here note: "According to reports by the Ministry of Education, approximately 2000 students dropout annually, and several students have committed suicide as a consequence of ragging." And in the studies they carry out at a university in Jaffna, they find that 59 per cent of students have experienced at least one type of ragging. It's a problem in many countries, of course, including Indonesia.

There's a strongly feminist streak to this novella, and an absolutely stand-out scene gives us Mrs Bandara -- an older Sri Lankan conference delegate, who up to now has been annoyingly nosy and gossipy -- launching into a tirade about sexual predators on Colombo buses. She's a real joy.



Minuses:

So this is all good. But a big flaw is that the book is way, way too busy...

There is just too much going on, in the small space available, to allow the different threads and characters to really develop.

In addition to the heavy themes outlined above, Surya was also whacked by fate when her new family -- husband and child -- are killed in a car accident. Unsurprisingly, coming on top of so many other traumas, this sends her spiralling down into deep depression. In terms of the plot, it's her resultant unsteadiness that explains so many errors of judgement when she meets Rafe.

But credulity is definitely stretched over all this... Rafe is a loner, yes, and he's at odds with his little world. But he's 17... I just can't see him befriending a complete stranger like that, even if she does take up his cause in the cafe where he works, when some nasty customer is giving him grief. And even though we understand that Surya is traumatized, her decisions are so deeply questionable that you wonder how she can possibly be the hotshot marketing person we're told she is.

As if this weren't enough to be dealing with, we also have Surya and her boss trying to figure out if they want a relationship or not (same-sex liaisons are illegal in Sri Lanka, although change may be on the way). This is another potentially interesting theme, but there's just not enough space to explore it properly.

Which could also be said of the shadow of colonialism. Mrs Bandara has interesting things to say about the dangers of postcolonial victimhood; conversely, what Rafe's biological parents did to Surya is a pretty exact parable of the colonial relationship -- suck the juice out, then go AWOL, and then reach for threats and aggression in the face of an attempt to re-establish a bond.



And the ending -- which I won't give away -- is a bit too contrived for my taste, although far be it from me to wish even more tragedy on poor Surya.

A bit of a mixed bag, then. But there's definitely enough good stuff to recommend a listen.