The Not Knowing

You need to look closely at the cover of Shankari Chandran’s novel Safe Haven to notice the sharp edges of the deceptively inviting image it depicts: the handcuffs, the barbed wire, the boat that seems to sit on top of the waves and yet be at the bottom of the sea, and the rebuke contained in the book’s title.

Chandran’s sprawling follow-up to her Miles Franklin Literary Award-winning Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens (2022) is oceanic in subject and scope. In part, Chandran uses fiction to make geopolitical and social commentary: Safe Haven is a furious statement about the Sri Lankan civil war, Australia’s listless engagement with the treatment of the Tamil people, and Australia’s policies towards, and treatment of, asylum seekers, including its use of private offshore-detention facilities. But the novel is also a political thriller, complete with interagency tensions, cool technology, intricate and unlikely plans, much intrigue, and a shout-out to John le Carré. It is also a character study that dwells upon the many possible meanings of friendship and familial and romantic love. And it is a meditation on faith and religion, trauma and death, courage and guilt, curry pies, and much more. There are flashes of humour, too, though these are less prominent than in Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens.