Prisoner #1056 : how I survived war and found peace
For CI Financial executive Roy Ratnavel, 'started in the mailroom' is more than a cliche. That was his start on Bay Street only a few years after escaping the ethnic violence that was engulfing Sri Lanka. Ratnavel's incredible journey begins when he was 17, taken by government soldiers to a prison camp for no reason other than guilty of being Tamil. He was tortured for two months, until he was able to get word out to a family friend-a colonel in the Sri Lankan army. 'Uncle' Fernando was able to rescue Ratnavel from the camp and return the bruised, bloodied boy to his family. Ratnavel's father understood that there was no future for his son in Sri Lanka. He sought refuge for his son in Canada. When the consular immigration officer asked for proof that the boy faced danger in his homeland, Roy simply lifted his shirt to show the man his raw scars. It wasn't long before Ratnavel was on a plane. His father was shot two days later. To repay the debt he owed to his hero of a father, Ratnave.
Available Copies by Location
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Victoria | Available |
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Subject |
Ratnavel, Roy, 1969- Refugees > Sri Lanka > Biography. Refugees > Canada > Biography. Tamil (Indic people) > Canada > Biography. Financial executives > Canada > Biography. Businessmen > Canada > Biography. |
- ISBN: 9780735245723 (hardcover)
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Physical Description
print
272 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 23 cm - Publisher 2023
Content descriptions
General Note: | Includes index. |
Additional Information
Publishers Weekly Review
Prisoner #1056 : How I Survived War and Found Peace
Publishers Weekly
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In this underwhelming debut, Ratnavel, an executive at Canada's largest asset management firm, charts his path to career success after surviving the Sri Lankan Civil War. As a teenager, Ratnavel was imprisoned by the Sri Lankan army for several months in a bogus attempt to attach him to the Tamil Tigers, a liberation-minded terrorist group. At 18, after managing to reach his uncle from prison, Ratnavel was released and left home to join family in Canada. Immediately upon arrival, he received news that his father, who arranged for him to leave Sri Lanka, had been killed. Ratnavel writes of being inspired by his father's wisdom, intellect, and pride in his Tamil heritage as he navigated an unfamiliar culture and rose through the business ranks. Though Ratnavel's personal story is powerful, he undercuts it with middling prose and lectures that feel reductive at best: " has transformed from a bulwark of a free and color-blind society into a Social Justice utopia whose only inputs are skin color, gender, and race, and whose only outputs are grievance, division, and victimhood," for example. Personal intrigue aside, excessive moralizing make this a slog. Agent: Michael Levine, Westwood Creative Artists. (Apr.)