NATIONAL BESTSELLER * A NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST * One woman's searing account of losing her entire family in a tsunami.

"The most exceptional book about grief I've ever read.... As unsparing as they come, but also defiantly flooded with light.... Extraordinary." -Cheryl Strayed, The New York Times Book Review


In 2004, at a beach resort on the coast of Sri Lanka, Sonali Deraniyagala and her family-parents, husband, sons-were swept away by a tsunami. Only Sonali survived to tell their tale. This is her account of the nearly incomprehensible event and its aftermath.