To All the Places We Have Left Behind

How we talk about colonialism today

A woman stands in front of three elephants in a German zoo. It is Sinthujan Varatharajah’s mother. She, an asylum-seeking Tamil, and the elephants have something in common: they have come a long way. All four were either abducted or displaced before their meeting in the elephant house.
From this starting point, Sinthujan Varatharajah sets out on an intensive search for clues that unites eye-opening aspects of global colonialism with European asylum politics.
With great clear-sightedness, Sinthujan Varatharajah calls fundamental certainties into question, using a personal lens that etches his story onto the reader’s memory.

Sinthujan Varatharajah elevates the debate on colonialism and asylum politics to a new level

Eye-opening and forceful

Winner of the Lessing Sponsorship 2022 concerning debates on Germany’s Nazi past and the culture of remembrance