In this informative, moving portrait of a courageous human rights activist, doctor, teacher, and mother murdered for her beliefs, we get also a portrait of her family, as well as a fleeting yet panoramic view of politics and life in Sri Lanka.

Rajani Thiranagama?s husband, sister and daughter speak of their life before, during and after her death; their voices resonate as instruments of emotion, a small chamber orchestra of love and grief, its 4th player invisible, yet utterly present.

Sujan accents the words with ominous music, and one dramatic, but right-feeling fling of gunfire, but it?s the words, the poetry of phrase or insight, that kept me taut with attention. Hearing excerpts from Thiranagama?s letters, read by another, about how ?not moving, not making a shadow or a sound can kill the whole household,? brought my mind to other war zones; likewise her sister?s lamenting so many others killed, a ?community bereft.? Her daughter carefully assesses the mother she lost when only eleven, recounting lessons learned, among them that the most political work one could do in the war zone was to continue normal life. I highly recommend this story of one woman, one family, one war zone, or of anywhere, really, where people are fighting and dying.