Wave
Wave is Sonali Deraniyagala's 2013 memoir of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and the eight years that followed. On the morning of December 26, Deraniyagala, her English husband Steve Lissenburgh, their two young sons Vikram and Malli, and her parents were on holiday at a beachside hotel in Yala National Park on the southern coast of Sri Lanka. The wave came up the beach without warning, swept their jeep into a flooded paddy, and killed all of them except Sonali. The book is the record of what living through that bereavement was actually like, in clear, stripped prose that refuses every available consolation. Deraniyagala writes about the months in her brother's house in Colombo when she could not stop drinking and could not bear to be touched, the aborted suicide attempts, the slow terrible work of returning to her family's London home, and the eventual partial reconciliation with the lives she still has.
Themes & atmosphere
What you might want to know about Wave
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
On the morning of December 26, 2004, Sonali Deraniyagala is on holiday with her parents, her husband Steve, and their two young sons Vikram and Malli at a beach hotel in Yala on the southeast coast of Sri Lanka.
Yes. Sonali Deraniyagala's memoir recounts losing her parents, husband, and two sons in the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami while on holiday in Sri Lanka.
It is one of the most acclaimed grief memoirs of the past two decades and is unflinching about the depth of her loss. Many readers describe it as devastating but essential.
Wave is 256 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Wave takes most readers 4 to 6 hours to finish.
Wave is a standalone novel by an unknown author, not part of a series.
Wave is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.